Brussels - NATO yesterday ordered its military leaders to Belgrade today to hand the Yugoslav President, Mr Slobodan Milosevic, another ultimatum: halt violence and pull his police out of Kosovo by Tuesday or face air strikes.
The mission, to be led by the Supreme Allied Commander for Europe, Gen Wesley Clark, and the chairman of NATO's military committee, Gen Klaus Naumann of Germany, was being called a last chance for Mr Milosevic to avoid armed intervention.
NATO's credibility is now on the line, its once-extended deadline to Mr Milosevic due to expire on Tuesday, when the NATO Council's "activation order" for air strikes is supposed to take effect. But the threat of air strikes, credited with forcing an 11th-hour compliance agreement from Mr Milosevic, was losing steam with each passing day. NATO says Mr Milosevic has not kept his word, has not withdrawn his special police from Kosovo and has not let up on his heavy-handed campaign against the ethnic Albanians who make up 90 per cent of the province's population.