KOSOVO: NATO troops raided apartment blocks in a flashpoint Kosovo town yesterday after two days of serious violence which the alliance has blamed mainly on Albanian hardliners bent on driving out Serbs.
The raids on three high-rise blocks inhabited mainly by ethnic Albanians followed the killing of a sniper in Kosovska Mitrovica by NATO troops on Thursday after they came under fire.
"A sniper in Mitrovica was shot and killed by KFOR soldiers," Lieut-Col Jim Moran said, declining to reveal the sniper's nationality.
Germany, France and Denmark sent reinforcements to quell the violence which has killed 31 people and driven nearly 1,000 Serbs from their homes, in what some say is a deliberate drive to wipe out isolated Serb pockets before Kosovo is carved up.
The UN refugee agency expressed concern that the bloodshed might spark a new exodus of minority Serbs. UNHCR spokesman Mr Ron Redmond said it "threatens to undo years of international efforts" to reconcile Orthodox Slavs and Muslim Albanians.
"There are not many (ethnic) minorities left in Kosovo - 220,000 have fled since 1999. We don't want to see any more go," he told a news conference in Geneva.
In Belgrade, some 15,000 Serbs rallied and demanded that the United Nations halt "Albanian terrorists".
Germany decided to send 600 more troops to strengthen the 18,500-strong KFOR peacekeeping mission. They will start arriving today, raising the German contingent to 3,800.
France pledged to send an extra 400 troops, most of them expected to arrive today, and Denmark promised an additional 100 soldiers.
About 150 British troops landed in Kosovo early yesterday, the first of a promised 750 soldiers, a Defence Ministry spokesman said in London.
About 150 US troops and 80 Italian Carabinieri arrived on Thursday. NATO-led peacekeepers in neighbouring Bosnia said they had sent an extra 160 Italian and British troops to Kosovo.
But some fear permanent damage has been inflicted over the past 48 hours to the post-1999 war resettlement programme.
"Albanians are trying to cleanse the Serbs and create a fait accompli before any talks," said a Western source on condition of anonymity. "Anyone with political experience can see that."
NATO bombed Serbia in 1999 to prevent Serbian ethnic cleansing of Albanians during an Albanian guerrilla uprising, and compelled Serb forces to withdraw from Kosovo. NATO and the United Nations then took control of the province.
In the immediate aftermath, Albanian revenge attacks, arson, killing and intimidation drove 200,000 Serbs out of Kosovo. Up to 100,000 stayed on, in north Mitrovica and in small enclaves.
In Mitrovica, scene of the worst clashes this week, a loud blast shook a high-rise building yesterday and NATO-led troops evacuated residents, a Reuters cameraman at the scene said.
Smoke billowed from windows in the building, populated mainly by Albanians, but located in the Serb-dominated northern part of the ethnically divided town.
Earlier about 300 French troops and gendarmes raided Albanian high-rise apartment blocks after apparently coming under fire during the night.
Reuters reporters on the scene said hundreds of KFOR soldiers remained deployed near the bridge dividing Mitrovica, with several Armoured Personnel Carriers blocking the bridge.
One injured man was taken to hospital and a local official in a Mitrovica district inhabited mainly by Muslim Slavs, or Bosniaks, said he had been hit by sniper fire shortly before.
In Svinjare, a Serb village about five kilometres south of Mitrovica, smoke rose from burnt-out houses which a local man said had been torched by Albanians.
Mr Oliver Ivanovic, a Serb member of the Kosovo parliament's presidency, said he expected burning, looting and "ethnic cleansing" to continue in the next few days, "until KFOR gets its act together". - (Reuters)