Peacekeepers were reported today to have seized a renegade ethnic Albanian guerrilla leader, paving the way for the peaceful handover of rebel-held territory in Serbia to Yugoslav forces.
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A burning house in Macedonia during the recent conflict
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In neighbouring Macedonia the guns of another group of ethnic Albanian guerrillas battling troops of the Slav-dominated government fell silent after one of the heaviest days of fighting in the tiny former Yugoslav republic for weeks.
At Bujanovac, in Serbia's southern Presevo Valley, a spokesman for the government press centre said Mr Muhamed Xhemajli, described by Belgrade as one of the most militant commanders of the UCPMB guerrillas operating in the area, had been arrested and taken to a base of NATO-led KFOR peacekeepers in Kosovo.
KFOR could not immediately confirm the arrest. Yesterday the main leader of the guerrillas, who have been operating in a buffer zone around Kosovo that has been closed to Yugoslav security forces, agreed to disband by the end of the month.
Mr Xhemajli, described by a senior NATO official as a "rogue criminal element", had vowed to resist the redeployment of Yugoslav forces in the southern sector of the buffer zone on Thursday under an agreement with KFOR.
The detention of Xhemajli was reported as 43 of his men turned themselves in to Russian and US peacekeepers in Kosovo, along with more than three truckloads of weapons, ammunition and explosives, after crossing from their base in the Serbian town of Muhovac late yesterday afternoon.
It brought the total of UCPMB fighters giving themselves up under an amnesty offered by KFOR to 280 since last Wednesday.