The Times, March 5 1998

Cook acts on Kosovo flare-up

BY MICHAEL BINYON, DIPLOMATIC EDITOR

BRITAIN last night moved quickly to try to avert an explosion of

violence in Kosovo that could result in a fresh phase of fighting in the

southern Balkans.

On the eve of a meeting today with President Milosevic, Robin Cook, the

Foreign Secretary, called an emergency meeting on Monday of the six-

nation Contact Group to discuss the crisis in Kosovo.

Robert Gelbard, America's senior envoy in the Balkans, threatened

serious action against Yugoslavia if it used violence against ethnic

Albanians. He warned Mr Milosevic that America was ready to deal with

his policies and his police "using every appropriate tool we have at our

command".

Mr Cook announced that he is to convene a meeting in London of the

countries that for the past five years have played the main role in

trying to bring peace to the Balkan region: America, Russia, Britain,

France, Germany and Italy.

Tom Walker in Komoran, experiences the terror of a grilling at the hands

of Serbian security forces

Kosovo's ethnic victims turn to arms

AT THE police checkpoint, the paranoia of Serbia's security forces

became frighteningly clear. "Out of your car, now, fast!" barked an

officer.

Harald Doornbos, my Dutch colleague, offered his press card, and

received a slap in return. We were marched to a stop sign, which

apparently we had ignored.

Next, our notebooks were grabbed. The blue-uniformed officer, veins

throbbing in his temples, pushed his angry face at us. "This," he said,

glaring at a notebook, "is Albanian - so you speak Albanian?" We were

wondering who would be hit first when an officer at the other side of

the checkpoint screamed that we were being filmed. Our interrogation was

briefly postponed, while we were pushed into a camouflaged and fortified

bunker.

"You're from Sarajevo," said the first officer, picking up where he had

left off and inspecting our Bosnian Nato accreditation. "You're Muslims?

Show me you're not Muslims." He crossed himself, asking Harald to do

likewise. Quietly, we said that we were Protestants. "Bloody Muslims,"

he muttered.

The inspection of the notebooks continued, and interest focused on the

last pages - a scrawled chronicle of interviews with ethnic Albanians

living under the terror of this police state. The name Frenki Simatovic

was noticed - according to diplomats, one of President Milosevic's

henchmen in the suppression of Albanians and a man with links to the

cleansing of non-Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia over the past decade. "Ah,

my boss," said the officer.

After an hour, our ordeal was over. The notebooks were returned. "Make

sure you write nice things about us," advised the checkpoint chief. We

wondered how it must be for Albanians suspected of "terrorism" to be

caught by these Serb security forces.

Earlier we had interviewed a doctor at the hospital in Srbica, 30 miles

northwest of Pristina, who had seen the bodies of the 11 Albanians -

nine from one family - executed at the weekend by the notorious SAJ

anti-terrorist unit said to be under Mr Simatovic's command.

A photographer who had taken pictures of the bodies described a 16-year-

old with his eyes gouged out, his elder brother with no jaw, and a

cousin whose face was covered by cigarette burns.

"It is time to change our strategy," said Emin Halimi, president of the

Srbica branch of the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK), which for years

has negotiated in vain for restoration of some of the autonomy granted

under Tito. "People need to be protected, using any means we have."

Across the valley lay the ammunition factory where the Serbs are said to

be massing their counter-terrorism forces. Yesterday, a Serbian

journalist reported that the Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK) had issued a

call to arms, but many Albanians still hoping for peace dismissed the

news as propaganda from Belgrade. Mr Milosevic is said to have 70,000

police and soldiers in Kosovo, ready for further clampdowns.

In the mining town of Glogovac, a UCK sympathiser showed us a video he

had taken of Serb forces driving through the town on Sunday, after

massacres in which 25 Albanians died. The man said he would use the

video to raise money for the UCK in Germany, where he works. He said

that over the past year the UCK had killed 49 Albanians suspected of

collaborating with the Serbs, and that a strip of land 80 miles by 30

miles was under Albanian control.

In the absence of compromise from Belgrade, what moderation there

existed among the Kosovo Albanians is evaporating fast. Two of the LDK's

more pacifist vice-presidents have resigned and the organisation is now

condoning the killing of informers.

"We'd cry if anyone not guilty is killed," Mr Halimi said. "But if

someone collaborates with the regime, then he is committing suicide."

Cook rebuffs Belgrade to open dialogue with moderate Albanian leader

BY MICHAEL BINYON

DIPLOMATIC EDITOR

ROBIN COOK, the Foreign Secretary, is set to defy the Yugoslav

Government by seeking a meeting today with Ibrahim Rugova, leader of the

ethnic Albanian movement.

He will urge Dr Rugova, 54, whose moderate stand is being challenged by

the radical, clandestine Kosovo Liberation Army, to denounce violence

and prevent an upsurge in revenge killings in the province.

His main message will be reserved for President Milosevic, who has sent

troops and death squads into action against demonstrators. In face-to-

face meetings he will bluntly warn him and Zivadin Jovanovic, the

Foreign Minister, that rump Yugoslavia faces renewed isolation and the

imposition of fresh sanctions if it uses violence against the Albanian

majority in Kosovo.

Speaking for the European Union, he will warn the Yugoslav leaders that

the EU will not upgrade its ties with them until the problem is resolved

peacefully. That message was underlined also in Brussels yesterday by

Hans van den Broek, the EU Foreign Affairs Commissioner, who met

Borislav Vukovic, the Yugoslav Trade Minister. "We feel very clearly

that President Milosevic bears very great responsibility in this

respect," he said.

The warnings come amid a crescendo of concern in the Balkans over the

killings and violence. Romania, Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey all urged

Belgrade to start a dialogue with the Albanian majority in Kosovo, and

foreign ministers of countries neighbouring Kosovo were urgently

telephoning each other to co-ordinate their actions. "We expect

President Milosevic to find a political solution, not simply a policing

solution to the current crisis," Mr Cook said in Sarajevo yesterday. "He

can start by implementing the education agreement and getting the

schools and universities reopened after long years of closure."

He said that until Yugoslavia demonstrated tolerance for the Kosovo

community and respect for their rights expected from a modern European

state, the rest of Europe could not improve relations with it.

By contrast, Mr Cook praised the advances in peace in Bosnia, especially

the willingness of the new Bosnian Serb Government to carry out the

provisions of the Dayton accords. In a symbolic demonstration of EU

support for Milorad Dodik, the new Prime Minister, he addressed the

Bosnian Serb assembly in Banja Luka, the new seat of government of

Republika Srpska, praising the Bosnian Serbs for opting for change and

moderation.

Britain announced that it is to open an office of its embassy in Banja

Luka to increase liaison with the Bosnian Serb entity. Mr Cook said that

he is to provide another 1.2 million to pay for the exhumation of

bodies of those killed in "ethnic cleansing" during the Bosnian war.

The Daily Telegraph, 5 March 1998

Blair says Serbian killings must stop

By Tim Butcher and Colin Soloway in Banja Luka

TONY Blair told the Commons yesterday that Britain will not stand by as

Serbian paramilitaries commit fresh acts of ethnic repression against

the Albanian majority in the southern Serbian province of Kosovo.

After a weekend of violence left about 30 people dead, the Prime

Minister said the situation in Kosovo was "extremely grave" and would be

discussed by Robin Cook, the Foreign Secretary, during emergency talks

in Belgrade today.

As Washington hinted it was prepared to consider military intervention

in Kosovo to prevent bloodshed on the scale of the three-and-a-half-year

Bosnia war, a diplomatic crisis meeting on Kosovo was being planned to

be held in London on Monday. Unlike the Bosnian war when Washington was

initially kept out of peace negotiations, diplomatic sources said

America would be centrally involved along with Britain, France, Germany,

Russia and Italy in Monday's meeting.

Meanwhile in Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, an underground Albanian

group called for all able-bodied men in the province to join in the

armed struggle against the Serbs. Mr Blair was asked if Mr Cook would

give a clear message to Slobodan Milosevic, President of Yugoslavia,

that Britain would not stand by if another ethnic war was sparked in the

Balkans by Serb ethnic chauvinism.

"The Foreign Secretary will give that message very, very strongly to Mr

Milosevic," Mr Blair said. "I have no doubt at all that if there is

substantial conflict there, or indeed in Bosnia, that will have an

impact on us and the whole of Europe as well as that particular part of

the world." Although the European Union has not fully debated the issue

of Kosovo, a statement condemning the violent repression on Monday of a

peaceful demonstration by 30,000 ethnic Albanians was issued from

Brussels.

With the United Kingdom currently holding the EU Presidency, Mr Cook

will make clear that the 15 member states support a peaceful solution to

demands of more autonomy for Kosovo where Albanians outnumber Serbs nine

to one. Mr Cook was due to meet Ibrahim Rugova, the political leader of

the Kosovan Albanians, but it proved impossible to arrange a meeting at

short notice. Mr Cook will meet other representative Albanians after

talks with Mr Milosevic.

Observers acknowledge any attempt to put pressure on Mr Milosevic could

meet with threats by the former Serbian President to withdraw his

support for the Dayton peace treaty in Bosnia. Mr Milosevic's support

for the Dayton deal was crucial in forcing more nationalistic Serb

radicals in Bosnia to end the fighting in late 1995.

Although there is no willingness within Europe to become militarily

involved in the southern Balkans, Robert Gelbard, America's special

envoy, hinted that military intervention in Kosovo was possible when he

said America reserved the right to use "every appropriate tool we have

in our command". Mr Cook praised the "progress for real peace" he had

seen in the country in recent months, but warned the leaders of

neighbouring Serbia and Croatia that their actions were endangering the

future of peace in the Balkans.

In Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital, Mr Cook met the country's collective

presidency. Afterwards he told reporters that while he warned them that

further progress is expected, in particular on the issue of refugee

return, he said it is "the first time when I can see hope for the

future".

Mr Cook said the greatest progress had been made in the Bosnian Serb

Republic by the new Western-backed government of Milorad Dodik, the

prime minister, who had opened up Republika Srpska to co-operation with

the Muslim-Croat Federation and the international community. Mr Dodik's

public rejection of ethnic nationalism and commitment to the return of

Muslim and Croat refugees has earned the Serb republic tens of millions

of pounds in foreign aid to help pay workers and pensioners and rebuild

its shattered economy.

"The government of Mr Dodik did more in its first two weeks to improve

the lives of its people than its predecessors did in two years," Mr Cook

said, referring to the hard-line nationalist regime loyal to war crimes

suspect Radovan Karadzic. In an address to the Bosnian Serb parliament

in Banja Luka, Mr Cook signaled the British government's approval of Mr

Dodik's policies by his announcement of the opening of a British embassy

office in the Serb capital.

However, Mr Cook had stern warnings for Franjo Tudjman, the Croatian

President, and Mr Milosevic. In a recent speech, Mr Tudjman claimed that

Bosnia's borders were not valid, and that large parts of the country

rightfully belonged to Croatia. "They should recognise the strong case

for enhanced autonomy for Kosovo within the Federal Republic," he said.

The Independent

Big powers meet to avert Kosovo war

By Andrew Gumbel in Belgrade

FOREIGN ministers of the six Western powers who brokered the end of the

war in Bosnia will meet in emergency session for the first time in more

than two years on Monday to discuss ways to avert a major conflict in

Kosovo. Almost 30 people died in the Albanian-dominated province in

southern Serbia over the weekend.

On the ministers' agenda will be the possibility of reimposing full

sanctions on Serbia and Montenegro, the rump successor state to the old

Yugoslavia, whose president, Slobodan Milosevic, built his career on

stirring up ethnic tension in Kosovo.

Ministers from several countries have already made clear that they see

Mr Milosevic as the key figure, and intend to apply all possible

pressure on him to return to Kosovo at least part of the autonomy he

took away in 1989.

The meeting of the so-called Contact Group, comprising Britain, France,

Germany, Italy, the United States and Russia, will be chaired in London

by Robin Cook, the Foreign Secretary, who will be in Belgrade today for

talks on behalf of the European Union with Mr Milosevic and other

Serbian and Albanian leaders.

Speaking to reporters in Bosnia yesterday, Mr Cook warned that the

violence in Kosovo could "all too easily spill over" into other Balkan

states. He said greater autonomy for the province had become a matter of

urgency. Western diplomats fear any full-scale revolt by the Kosovo

Albanians, who make up 90 per cent of the population, could draw in

fellow Albanians in Macedonia and possibly Albania itself.

Pro-government opinion in Belgrade yesterday deplored the West's

apparent readiness to pin blame for the crisis on Serbia's shoulders,

saying the terrorist threat posed by Albanian separatists should not be

underestimated. Belgrade says last weekend's killing spree by Serbian

police was triggered by an ambush in which two uniformed officers were

murdered. Mr Cook was careful to condemn all violence: "We will not

tolerate anybody who uses the bomb and bullet rather than the ballot box

and peaceful political exchange," he said.

He was cautious, too, about the threat of reimposing sanctions, pointing

out that punitive measures against Yugoslavia were still in place,

denying the country access to international credit. The United States'

special envoy to the Balkans, Robert Gelbard, was more outspoken: "You

will see over the course of the next several days some very serious

action by the United States and our close allies ... the economy right

now in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia is dismal ... The situation

could become an awful lot worse and we can make it worse."

Electronic Telegraph

Friday 6 March 1998

War threat grows as Serbs shell Kosovo villages

By Philip Smucker in Kosovo and Tim Butcher, Defence Correspondent

THE southern Balkans edged closer to all-out war yesterday as

Serb security forces in the province of Kosovo attacked villages

suspected of being used as bases for armed Albanian freedom fighters.

Although few confirmed details emerged, Albanian sources said tanks

and heavy artillery were used as Serb Interior Ministry troops launched

systematic attacks on villages in the Drenica region to the west of the

provincial capital, Pristina.

It appeared that Serbia, which ignored numerous international calls for

restraint during the Bosnian war, was prepared to disregard calls not to

use violence made by Robin Cook, the Foreign Secretary, in crisis talks

in Belgrade yesterday. The Serbian authorities said the clampdown was

justified because "Albanian terrorists" had attacked police stations and

other symbols of the Yugoslav state.

The use of tanks and artillery represents a significant increase in the

level of fighting in the troubled province, where ethnic Serbs

are outnumbered nine to one by ethnic Albanians. A massive police

presence on the perimeter and phone calls to villagers indicated that the

Serbs were mounting an operation at least five times larger than another

last weekend which led to the deaths of four Serb policemen and 24

Albanians.

Resistance to the Serb police actions was strong in Laushe, which came

under attack yesterday afternoon. Villagers said by phone that they were

holding out against the Serb offensive. Albanian sources said villagers

were armed with machine-guns. The use of shelling to attack civilian

areas was a tactic honed during the war in Bosnia, when Serb troops

would routinely occupy high ground near a target area and pound it to

pieces.

Large numbers of Serb and Albanian refugees left the area as international

aid agencies said they were being denied entry to the region. Roads were

blocked by Serb forces in the towns of Mitrovica, Kline and Glogovac. Most

phone lines were cut in the zone of operations, and reports on casualties

became impossible to confirm.

The fighting was in an area used by the shadowy Kosovo Liberation

Army, a militant organisation created in 1996. Before the KLA's creation

the Albanian majority in Kosovo had relied on a policy of peaceful

non-violence to further their demands for greater autonomy within Serbia.

Although there were no initial reports of casualties, further bloodshed

was expected following last weekend's clashes. The fighting appeared

to confirm anecdotal evidence that Serbs have moved tens of thousands

of additional troops with tanks and heavy guns to the region in preparation

for a violent clampdown on Albanian separatists.

The violence suggested that calls for restraint from Britain and other

members of the European Union had not been heeded by the Serb authorities,

in spite of an emergency visit to Belgrade by Mr Cook. He met Slobodan

Milosevic, the president of Yugoslavia, for 35 minutes and made clear the

EU view that violent repression of Albanian separatists was not

acceptable.

Mr Cook said: "If Milosevic and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia want

to have a healthy, clearer relationship with Europe, they can only

do it if they adopt the standards of a European country in dealing with

their own people and with ethnic minorities within their country." In a

move ominously similar to the failed diplomatic efforts to end the

Bosnian war, Britain confirmed that a crisis meeting on Kosovo will be

held in London on Monday, attended by the United States, France, Russia,

Germany and Italy.

Albanian sources said the assaults with artillery and tanks were focused

on villages around the small town of Srbice, 15 miles west of Pristina.

The area is known to be home to many supporters of Albanian separatism and

has become effectively a no-go area for Serb police.

Foreign journalists were stopped by the Serb authorities from reaching

the area, but local reporters said there had been "dozens of dead and

injured". First Albanian reports said the villages of Prekaz and Laushe

were shelled by security forces early yesterday. Other police attacks

were reported on villages between Srbica and Mitrovica to the north.

Neighbouring countries reacted with horror to reports of the fierce

fighting because of the threat of it spreading across the region. A large

ethnic Albanian minority in Macedonia is causing concern for the

Macedonian authorities.

Macedonian Albanians, who occupy territory adjoining Kosovo, claim

they make up 40 per cent of the population, although the official

government figure is 22 per cent. President Kiro Gligorov has said the

Kosovo crisis could have a serious impact on Macedonia.

WorldView

Former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke Analyzes

Kosovo Situation

Aired March 6, 1998 - 6:07 p.m. ET

JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: We take you back now to the crisis in the

Yugoslav province of Kosovo.

During the civil war in Bosnia, the chief troubleshooter for the United

States was Richard Holbrooke. Holbrooke was assistant secretary of state

for European and Canadian affairs. He was the chief U.S. negotiator of

the Dayton Accord that ended the war in Bosnia.

Ambassador Holbrooke joins us now from New York.

Thank you for being with us.

First of all, for those people, Richard Holbrooke, who don't follow

Kosovo, tell us who the people are on each side.

RICHARD HOLBROOKE, FORMER SPECIAL ENVOY TO BOSNIA: That would take the

rest of your show, Judy. This is really complicated.

Let me put it this way. From 1991 on, the greatest fear of all American

policymakers was that Kosovo would explode. If it had exploded before

Dayton, then it would have metastasized along with Bosnia into a real

catastrophe which could have enveloped the whole region, spread to the

neighboring countries of Albania, Macedonia and perhaps even engaged

Greece which has very tense border relations with both countries.

It will not, however, affect Bosnia right now because Dayton, the Dayton

the peace process, is definitely working. War criminals are

surrendering, ethnic cooperation is increasing and so on.

However, it nonetheless remains true that Kosovo has always been our

dreaded flash point. You may recall that President Bush issued a warning

on it in his last month as president and President Clinton reaffirmed it

in his first month as president. Now we appear to have reached the most

dangerous moment. Why?

90 percent of the people in Kosovo are Albanian, but the Serbs consider

it most sacred territory because in 1389 the Serbs lost the battle there

to the Turks. May sound strange to Americans, but your international

viewers understand it.

Now the issue is this, the Albanian Muslims of Kosovo are being

repressed by a brutal counterattack by the Serb army. Again, to your

viewers, this has nothing to do with Bosnia directly, but it comes from

the same legacy.

The question is now is what do we do?

WOODRUFF: So -- well let me -- before I ask you that, let me get another

question in here.

Is it a case of rooting out the terrorists, as the Serbs are saying? Or

is it ethnic cleansing as others are saying? As the Albanians are

saying.

HOLBROOKE: The Kosovo Albanian Muslims have been repressed brutally by

the Serbs who are only 10 percent of the population for years. There may

be some terrorists among the people fighting for some degree of autonomy

in Kosovo, that's not the issue. The issue is that the Serbs are using

helicopters, gun ships, they're killing people. And for this reason the

United States, yesterday, quite correctly, started to reimpose some

sanctions or, to put it another way, to take away some of the carrots

they've recently been giving Milosevic and the Serbs in Belgrade because

Milosevic has been helping out in Bosnia.

So Washington was helping Milosevic for the first time because he was

helping us in Bosina. Now, as of yesterday, those carrots are taken

away. So it's a very complicated equation.

WOODRUFF: So what is to prevent this from becoming another Bosnia that

drags on for years and costs thousands and thousands of lives?

HOLBROOKE: I talked to Secretary Albright and her party and to the

acting secretary of state about this, and what I would like to say, very

clearly, is that they have learned the lesson of 1991-92. In that case

the previous administration left Yugoslavia alone while the Europeans

fiddled around and nothing happened.

This time Madeleine Albright is flying to London Monday to meet with the

British, French, German, Russian and Italian foreign ministers and

others to deal with it. The U.S. government is assembling a very strong

package of actions which it will try to push through with our allies and

friends. The Russians have already objected, but that's traditional. The

Russians will always object to anything which hurts their fellow Slavs,

Serbs.

The real point is that we are not going to sit back passively. I believe

it's clear that the lessons of the early 90s when neglect and

ambivalence at the beginning led to a horrendous tragedy have been

absorbed.

WOODRUFF: Will this require military intervention from the outside in

any way? Or is it just too early to know something like that?

HOLBROOKE: Well only the president can ever make a decision like that

Judy, but the president has shown in the past that he's ready to take

decisive action to maintain stability in this terribly dangerous part of

the world.

WOODRUFF: What about by the Europeans?

HOLBROOKE: I would say, number one, we don't have to discuss that issue

yet.

Number two, the president and his European allies will address that if

necessary. But I think it's a little early to worry about that one.

WOODRUFF: You do think, it sounds as if you're saying you do think that

this crisis can be headed off by diplomacy at least at this point.

HOLBROOKE: Well we have to try. But I want to make a point again about

the recent past. The only way we finally ended the war in Bosnia was

when we were ready to confront and people ready to confront the need to

use force. And I think the president showed in Bosnia two years ago, and

in Iraq a week ago, that he is ready to use that if necessary. And I do

not think the Serbs should go around thinking this is 1991-92 all over

again when the U.S. said we don't have a dog in that hunt. We have 8,000

troops in Bosnia, 500 in Macedonia, and we care about stability in that

area.

WOODRUFF: Former U.S. Ambassador, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State

Richard Holbrooke. Thank you for joining us.

HOLBROOKE: Thanks, Judy.

7 March 1998

The Times

As Serb police continued to terrorise Albanian areas of Kosovo, Tom

Walker saw a village being razed

Voice of hope amid the cruelty of the Balkans

THE Kosovo village of Prekaz was being systematically burnt yesterday,

still surrounded by Serb troops dug into forward positions beneath

forests concealing Albanians hiding and fighting for their lives.

Through the wooden slats of a cowshed in Upper Prekaz, a surreal scene

encapsulating the cruelty and beauty of the Balkans unfolded. In the

foreground, about half a mile across tumbling fields and hedgerows, a

dozen Serb soldiers were standing by their foxholes, occasionally

dashing across open ground. One field away from them the cluster of red-

tiled houses smouldered, before a freshly started fire sent a great

plume of smoke rising. A volley of automatic fire rang out from the

woods.

In the background the Bjeshket e Nenura - mountain of doom - stood in

snow-capped splendour, marking the border with Montenegro. And all

around the hedgerows burgeoned with primroses and catkins. A farmer fed

chickens just out of range of Serb sniper fire, looking up only as

artillery shells crashed down on another village.

The professor who crouched with us nodded sadly. "How many people can

you imagine must be dead down there? When the Serbs say 20 you can

always multiply it five times."

Just beyond Prekaz the water tower marking the ammunition factory in

Srbirca, the base for the Serbian reign of terror in Kosovo, jutted out.

The farmer whose cowshed had afforded us our lookout pointed to the

concealed tank positions. "You should have heard the shelling

yesterday," he said. "Today is a holiday."

As we walked back the professor continued to muse on his people's

plight. "I want to embrace the future, Microsoft Windows, the 21st

century," he said. "And yet the Serbs can only see through a window to

the past. Our culture is about energy, theirs is about force."

At the crest of the hill, the threat of snipers now safely behind us, we

met two farmers, one with a shotgun, the other carrying an Italian army

rifle dating from before the Second World War. "We have to try anything

we can," he said. On his baseball cap was "Boston Fighting Cocks".

A village elder in a more traditional Albanian skull cap waved his

umbrella in anger.

The professor advised us the Serbs might advance, and we jumped into his

Lada, driven by another academic colleague. We jolted through abandoned

villages, their menfolk hiding in the woods, their women and children

refugees in Mitrovica. For an hour and a half the Lada scraped over the

ruts, occasionally giving way to horse-drawn carts carrying food for the

men in the woods. Tractors packed with the last refugees trundled along

with us. Groups of men occasionally dashed down to greet us, and the

professor advised them how safe it was to go back. They told us of the

casualties they knew about, and the latest positions of the police road

blocks. The professor talked about logic and DNA, and his fears for his

four children's future, as the artillery fire faded.

We discussed Robin Cook's failed talks with the Yugoslav President,

Slobodan Milosevic, author of Kosovo's misery. "How can he insist that

this is an internal problem when he has been able to do nothing to solve

it for ten years?".

The professor wished us a peaceful return to Pristina, asking us to fax

our articles to him once the Serbs had restored Mitrovica's telephone

links. "After Milosevic, e-mail," he said.

Albanian Army on alert after Serbs' Kosovo raids

BY MICHAEL BINYON

DIPLOMATIC EDITOR

THE Albanian Army was put on high alert yesterday as huge crowds in

Tirana denounced the Serb crackdown on Albanians in Kosovo.

In Pristina, capital of the Kosovo province, Ibrahim Rugova, the

Albanian nationalist leader, accused Serbia of using police for ethnic

cleansing. He said women and children had been killed during police

raids in Drenica and he appealed to the international community for

help.

The Serbian police said yesterday it had "destroyed the core" of the

separatist Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in Kosovo, killing the guerrilla

leader Adem Jasari and capturing 30 fighters.

Albania yesterday called for an emergency meeting of the United Nations

Security Council. Leave was cancelled for all troops along Albania's

northern border with Yugoslavia in response to what Albania said was an

increase in Serbian troop activity.

President Meidani told a 20,000-strong rally in Tirana's main square

that Serbia was guilty of "brutal violence" against ethnic Albanians.

Western analysts said that intervention by the Albanian army was

unlikely, as the country was still weak after last year's civil strife.

Robin Cook, the Foreign Secretary, gave a warning yesterday that the

crisis in Kosovo was deepening. He said that he had confronted President

Milosevic with the need to put an end to the killings and get the

political process started in Kosovo. "I got no satisfactory response."

Britain's ambassador in Belgrade was yesterday sent to Pristina with the

ambassadors from the five other Contact Group countries to assess the

situation. Foreign ministers of Britain, America, Russia, France,

Germany and Italy meet in London on Monday to decide on a response to

Belgrade's actions.

The Daily Telegraph

Albanians are 'executed' by Serbian police

By Philip Smucker in Pristina

HEAVY attacks continued against villages in Serbia's Kosovo province

last night as residents reported executions and many casualties as they

fled the zone of Serb police operations.

Refugees said police entered the town of Prekaz and killed Albanian men

before stepping up efforts to close a siege on civilians and suspected

members of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), a militant organisation

created in 1996.

The police said they had "destroyed the core" of the KLA in central

Kosovo and killed the guerrilla leader, Adem Jasari. The Serbian

Interior Ministry attacked critics for suggesting that the Serb units

had engaged in wholesale slaughter of unarmed civilians and prisoners.

Serb police units, controlled by Belgrade, have mounted fierce

operations that have included heavy cannon fire and helicopter gunships.

Western diplomats say the Serb units are using excessive force to put

down a guerrilla movement that they fear is growing by the day as a

result of the police actions. While Serb authorities have acknowledged

killing 36 "terrorists" in the past week, Albanian sources put the

number of dead at almost twice that.

Scores of Albanian houses were seen ablaze and there was evidence that

at least one car had crashed after being hit by a helicopter gunship.

Albanian villagers said yesterday that a small number of Albanian men

were holding off police in the town of Laushe. They said the units

appeared determined to destroy many Kosovo family compounds which are,

according to tradition, surrounded by heavy brick walls.

They said Jasari's family had been targets, with many women and children

killed and injured in the police actions. The police said they were only

fighting suspected "terrorists". Villagers fleeing the region reported

that special crack police units wearing black, reminiscent of Serb

paramilitary units in Bosnia and Croatia, had entered homes and were

executing Albanians.

The refugees fled - often 20 and 30 to a tractor - through the rugged

terrain beneath snowcapped peaks. "There isn't a moving soul in any

household," said Nasut Kicniqi, an old man who escaped with a family of

six on foot from the zone of operations. He fled across the winding

Drenica river along a ravine leading from the villages under attack.

"Where will my children go?" he asked. "They've begun to cleanse from

village to village"

While international condemnation mounted over the police actions

controlled by President Milosevic of Yugoslavia, anger and divisions

between the Albanians and Serbs in the Kosovo region of Serbia, a

republic of Yugoslavia along with Montenegro, are mounting daily.

Police units in the zone of operation pointed turret guns from armoured

personnel carriers at western journalists and told them to back off. "We

are chasing terrorists now, and when we catch them you can enter this

area, but not until then," said a police chief near Prekaz. Diplomats

fear that the region is on the verge of another genocidal conflict, and

young Albanians have already begun to organise more armed resistance to

the Serb attacks.

"Nobody is afraid to die any more," said Albatros Rexhaj, a student who

arrived in Pristina, the provincial capital, yesterday. "We have

Kalashnikovs and grenades, but we are fighting now mostly with our bare

hands. Women and children are leaving, but the men are staying in

Laushe. They can destroy homes with artillery, but they can't kill us

all."

Bands of young men could be seen roaming the Kosovo hills yesterday,

many of them heading for areas where Serb police had been in action.

Sinister 'saviour' of the Serbs

By Tim Butcher

THERE is a horrible sense of dj vu about the worsening situation in

the Serbian province of Kosovo.

Well-armed Serbs are again killing non-Serbs. Remote villages are again

being pounded with artillery. Traumatised refugees are again streaming

across our television screens. And again Slobodan Milosevic, the

56-year-old president of Yugoslavia, is behind it all.

Milosevic's control in Serbia remains absolute and as the casualty

figures rose this week, Robin Cook, the Foreign Secretary, flew to

Belgrade for talks with him. They talked for 35 minutes. Mr Cook made

clear that violent repression of ethnic minorities was unacceptable to

Britain and the 14 other members of the European Union. In the language

of diplomats Mr Cook was said to be clear and frank. In fact he was

little short of livid.

The bullet-headed Yugoslav president was unmoved. His podgy face under

its distinctive helmet of spiky hair betrayed little emotion as he

listened but refused to make any promises. "I got no satisfactory

response," Mr Cook said after the meeting. For a political leader like

Milosevic, a brief confrontation with a visiting foreign minister was

small fry.

His horizons are too great, his ambitions too large and his desire for

power too complete for him to make any rash promises or any impulsive

gesture. After a troubled childhood - his uncle, father and mother all

killed themselves - Milosevic climbed steadily through the power

structures of Tito's Yugoslavia.

This was a socialist federation of six republics - Serbia, Montenegro,

Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Macedonia - with a complicated web of

checks and balances designed by Tito to control intense ethnic rivalries

within the peoples of the Southern Slav or Jugo Slav lands. Communism

and cronyism were the keys to power and Milosevic exploited both.

He married Mirjana Markovic, whom he met as a teenager in his home town

of Pozarevac in December 1958. Her family was well connected with the

wartime partisans who ran the country and with the help of her father

Milosevic was a political appointment in a state corporation. He

travelled overseas, learnt passable English in America, and began his

ascent of the Communist Party ladder, befriending Ivan Stambolic, who

was to become head of the Serbian Communist Party in 1984.

Milosevic ran the Belgrade branch with the support of Stambolic but in

1987 he ousted his former mentor with a well-orchestrated palace coup.

Up to then Milosevic had polished his communist credentials. With its

ideological opposition to nationalism Milosevic had displayed little

electoral interest in ethnic divisions or the supremacy of his own

Serbian kinfolk.

That all changed the same year, when he visited Kosovo to try to placate

angry demonstrations by Serbs alleging that they were suffering

discrimination in the autonomous province where they were outnumbered

almost nine to one by ethnic Albanians. Kosovo holds a unique place in

the hearts of Serbs. The cradle of their civilisation, it is the

location of some of their principal cultural and religious sites.

It was also the scene in June 1389 at Kosovo field, or Kosovo polje, of

the Serbs' most crushing defeat at the hands of the invading Ottoman

Turks. Many Serbs remain obsessed with that defeat that led to 500 years

of Turkish domination. Initially, Milosevic tried to appease the Serbs

with the party line of "Brotherhood and Unity" but in television footage

of the encounter he can almost be seen to change his point of view.

"No one will ever beat you again," he promised in a speech that

captivated the crowd. Nationalism had returned to the Balkans and

Milosevic had set the scene for the break-up of Yugoslavia. He even

returned to Kosovo polje for the 600th anniversary of the battle in

1989, which degenerated into an unashamed orgy of flag-waving Serb

nationalism.

Rhetoric supporting "Greater Serbia" led to paranoia and nervousness in

the non-Serb areas. With only a tiny Serb minority, Slovenia slipped

relatively peacefully out of the republic in 1991, but because of the

large Serb minorities in Croatia and Bosnia, bloodshed was inevitable.

Milosevic armed the Serbs in both countries and provided material

support when war broke out.

From 1991 to 1994 his shrinking Yugoslavia - it now consists only of

Montenegro and Serbia - continued giving support but international

opposition slowly grew to the excesses of Balkan violence. Like the

sorcerer's apprentice, Milosevic found that things were out of control.

Armed thugs ran amok in eastern Bosnia and pictures of ethnic cleansing,

labour camps and civilians disembowelled in artillery barrages left

Serbia internationally isolated and subject to sanctions so tight that

they led to hyper-inflation and economic stagnation.

Slowly Milosevic cut his links with the hardline Serb nationalists in

Croatia and Bosnia, like Radovan Karadzic, as he reinvented himself as

international peacemaker. So desperate was the West for peace that the

transformation was accepted. Milosevic was a man that the West could do

business with, though some observers called for his indictment on

charges of war crimes. In 1996 the sanctions were lifted.

But a Serbian economy riddled with corruption and reluctant to grasp the

reforms of other former Communist countries failed to revive. Hundreds

of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Belgrade in

December 1996 after Milosevic annulled municipal elections that his

party failed to win. It appeared to be the end for Milosevic, but he has

proved more resilient.

The violence in Kosovo appears to be an attempt to shore up control

using the nationalist card Milosevic has made his own. Although it cost

hundreds of thousands of lives in Bosnia and Croatia, nationalism

appeared to ensure Milosevic's survival. He seems willing again to

sacrifice more lives on its altar.

The Guardian

Restraining Milosevic

Kosovo needs autonomy

Leader

Friday March 6, 1998

Houses set alight and civilians shot dead by Serbian security forces

yesterday make a horribly familiar picture: is this the start of the

next round of ethnic warfare in former Yugoslavia? If so, it is not for

lack of warning. The suggestion that the next flashpoint could come in

Kosovo, where the Albanian people has suffered oppression for years, has

been made repeatedly since the Dayton agreement brought peace of a sort

to Bosnia. The only surprise is how long the patience of the majority

population in Kosovo has endured.

The violence in and around the capital of Pristina has blunted the

diplomatic thrust of Robin Cook's mission to Sarajevo, Banja Luka and

Belgrade on behalf of the European Union. This was intended to strike a

cautiously hopeful note, giving encouragement to the new and relatively

more moderate leadership of the Bosnian Serbs. Yesterday Mr Cook did

give the Republika Srpska the benefit of the doubt, telling their

assembly that the extremists were being rolled back and promising

international reward if they progressed towards democracy and pluralism.

But moving on to Belgrade, Mr Cook was unable to deliver any bouquets to

President Slobodan Milosevic. Instead his meeting was absorbed by the

Kosovo question and what was called a tough message that Britain "will

not stand idly by" - whatever that may mean. The US has also joined in

the international pressure with a similarly coded warning from its

Bosnia envoy Robert Gelbard that Washington will use "every appropriate

tool" to deal with Serbia if Kosovo ignites.

Will such warnings have much or indeed any effect? The root problem so

far has been the assumption that what happens in Bosnia can be separated

from what happens in Serbia - of which Kosovo is an unhappy part. Mr

Milosevic has been appeased in the belief that he helped in some measure

to improve matters in Bosnia. Only last week Mr Gelbard met the Serb

leader in Belgrade with a basket of small but significant concessions -

including reopening of charter flights to the US and of a Yugoslav

Federation consulate there. These have been contemptuously accepted

while Mr Milosevic powers up his repressive engine in Kosovo. Perhaps he

did deliver something on Bosnia. But he did so after too many months and

years during which the international community gave him the benefit of

the doubt.

Similar procrastination over Kosovo will be just as damaging and

probably more so. The non-provocation policy of the alternative

"president" Ibrahim Rugova is now crumbling as militant action by the

Kosovo Liberation Front invites more Serbian repression. A Kosovo

conflagration will very soon destabilise Macedonia where relations

between the government and its Albanian minority are already very edgy.

Bulgaria and Greece both have potential stakes in the outcome. It will

also place the Albanian government, however reluctant to become involved

- and facing its own problems of unrest - under huge internal pressure.

The six-nation Contact Group which will meet in London on Monday to

discuss Kosovo must send an unambiguous message to Mr Milosevic and take

clear and decisive steps. It should press for the indefinite renewal of

mandate for the UN forces on the Macedonian border with Serbia. Any

improvement of relations with Mr Milosevic must be tied unambiguously to

progress in negotiations with the majority people of Kosovo, for which

the Contact Group should offer its good offices. A real measure of

autonomy remains the only solution, but as more Albanians take to arms

in anger and despair, it will not be available for much longer.

Serbs leave trail of death in Kosovo

By Jovan Kovacic in Pristina and Ian Black in London

Friday March 6, 1998

Serbian security forces pursuing guerrillas in Kosovo killed at least 20

Albanians and apparently inflicted heavy casualties in attacks on other

Albanian nationalist villages yesterday as British-led diplomatic

efforts to defuse the mounting crisis were rebuffed.

Reports from Albanian sources reaching Kosovo's capital, Pristina, said

Serbian police and troops shelled villages and set houses on fire in the

Drenica region, where almost 30 ethnic Albanians were killed in fighting

with Serbs last weekend.

Serbian television quoted the Serbian interior ministry as saying that

20 Albanians and two Serbian policemen were killed in fighting in the

village of Prekaz.

As the violence erupted, Robin Cook, the Foreign Secretary, met the

Yugoslav president, Slobodan Milosevic, to warn of him of the European

Union's concern, but he left Belgrade discouraged by the defiant

response.

"I wish I could say I leave with more hope than I arrived," he said. "We

are particularly concerned about the latest serious operations in

Kosovo."

Mr Milosevic did not issue a statement. But the Serbian president, Milan

Milutinovic, reiterated that settling the crisis was "in Serbia's

jurisdiction", not the international community's.

Earlier Mr Cook said: "Progress must be made before the situation gets

even more grave.

"The solution to the crisis in Kosovo is not going to be met by policing

actions. We expect firm action on terrorism, but within the law - not

above it."

Mr Cook is to report to fellow foreign ministers from the international

Contact Group - the United States, France, Germany, Russia and Italy -

before they meet in London on Monday for crisis talks on Kosovo.

Diplomats said the group was united about the need to persuade Mr

Milosevic to back down and act swiftly to avoid the disagreements that

accompanied the start of the Yugoslav wars of succession in 1991.

British officials said that the progress made in implementing the Dayton

peace agreement in Bosnia had made Mr Milosevic less important and so

more susceptible to pressure over Kosovo.

Albanian sources said yesterday's assaults with artillery and tanks were

on villages around the small town of Srbice, about 15 miles west of

Pristina.

Police prevented Western journalists reaching the area, a known

nationalist bastion with a population of about 60,000.

A spokesman for the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK), the biggest

Albanian political party, said: "We have heard reports of casualties but

we can say nothing for sure until we have names."

The Pristina newspaper Koha Ditore quoted an Albanian human rights

spokesman as saying that there were dozens of dead and injured, and that

the population had left Glogovac and the nearby villages of Likosane and

Quirez.

Ten men of one family in Quirez, suspected by the Serbs of having KLA

links, were among the dead at the weekend.

The first Albanian reports said the villages of Prekaz and Lausha, close

to Qirez, were shelled early yesterday.

Other police attacks were reported on villages between Srbica and

Mitrovica to the north.

The police reopened the road between Pristina and Srbica in the late

morning, but there was no indication whether the security operation had

been completed.

Jovan Kovacic is a Reuters correspondent

The Independent

Serbs cut off killing fields of Kosovo

By Andrew Gumbel in Pristina

Serbian authorities imposed a security cordon yesterday where their

special police forces have been attacking Albanian villages in Kosovo,

blocking roads and intimidating or roughing up journalists and Western

officials who tried to get through.

Albanian sources said fighting was continuing in at least one of the

villages in the Drenica region, Prekaz, where houses were set on fire by

Serb mortars, and that others were still under siege. The official

death-toll from Thursday's fighting was 22, including two policemen,

although Serbian police forces put the number at 30. Albanian leaders

said as many as 50 had been killed.

One of the dead was named as Adem Jashari, said by the Serbs to be a

commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army, which has claimed

responsibility for attacks on policemen and "collaborators". The Jashari

family is well known for its opposition to Serb rule in Kosovo, though

Albanian officials said there was no evidence he had been involved in

armed combat. Details were sketchy and claims by both sides almost

impossible to verify. The Serbs claimed to have discovered underground

arms caches and secret military hospitals, while the Albanians claimed

to have captured two armoured troop carriers.

Journalists trying to reach the Drenica area were turned back at police

checkpoints and some of them threatened. The Red Cross reached the town

of Mitrovica, north of the combat zone, and saw several of the wounded

in a hospital but said they were too traumatised to talk. Another Red

Cross group was stopped near the Drenica village of Glogorac and two of

its members detained at the local police station.

Witnesses who passed information out of the Drenica area said women and

children were trying to flee by road, while menfolk headed into the

woods. They spoke of killings by police, based not on the desire to

flush out terrorists but rather a crude desire for bloodshed.

After Thursday's apparently fruitless meeting in Belgrade between Robin

Cook, Foreign Secretary, and Slobodan Milosevic, the Yugoslav President,

Western diplomats continued efforts to calm the situation in Kosovo and

persuade the two sides to initiate dialogue about greater autonomy for

the Albanian majority in the province.

Ambassadors from five of the six Contact Group countries (Britain,

France, Germany, Italy, the US and Russia) travelled to the Kosovo

capital, Pristina, for talks with the self-styled Kosovo president,

Ibrahim Rugova, and Serbian officials. The Russian ambassador sent a

deputy in his place.

The Italian religious community that successfully brokered an education

accord between Serbs and Albanians 18 months ago also sent out a

mediator, Mgr Vincenzo Paglia, to talk to the two sides and persuade

them to work out the details of the accord together so that it could be

implemented.

The Serbs appeared to have softened their line yesterday, saying they

were willing to talk about autonomy issues that stopped short of

outright independence for the Albanians. Kosovo Albanian intellectuals

suspected this was part of a strategy to pull a diplomatic trick,

alienating the Albanians through massive use of force, offering to sit

down at a negotiating table confident the Albanians will refuse, and

then being able to turn round and claim they are the intransigent ones,

not the Serbs.

Financial Times

Kosovo: Serbia ignores plea to end crisis

SATURDAY MARCH 7 1998

By Guy Dinmore in Belgrade, John Thornhill in Moscow and Ralph Atkins in

Bonn

Serbian security forces yesterday pursued their offensive in central

Kosovo against suspected strongholds of ethnic Albanian rebels, as the

leading powers struggled to concentrate diplomatic pressure on Belgrade.

Serbia's ruling Socialist party, led by Slobodan Milosevic, the federal

Yugoslav president, dismissed as "nonsense" threats of sanctions or

outside military intervention. Ministers of the Contact Group, formed to

deal with Bosnia and composed of the US, Russia, Britain, Germany,

France and Italy, will tackle the Kosovo crisis in London on Monday.

Robin Cook, UK foreign secretary, said it would impress on Mr Milosevic

"the need for an immediate end to repressive action" by "bringing to

bear the concerted weight of the Americans, Russians and key Europeans".

But the latest assault in Kosovo began on Thursday just as Mr Cook

delivered a protest to Mr Milosevic in Belgrade. Yesterday tank and

automatic weapons fire could be heard around the village of Lausa about

25 miles west of Pristina, the provincial capital of Kosovo. Most of its

Albanian population had fled to the nearby town of Srbica, joining

several thousand refugees collecting there since Thursday.

In contrast to the US, which has threatened force if Serb repression in

Kosovo does not end, Russia, with its traditional ties to fellow

Orthodox Serbs, yesterday stressed that threats of force or extra

sanctions against Belgrade were "unacceptable". Underlining its

disapproval of western policy, Moscow said it would only send a deputy

foreign minister to the London meeting, where the five western countries

will all be represented by their foreign ministers.

Klaus Kinkel, German's foreign minister, called yesterday for the

Security Council's immediate involvement, warning the "highly explosive"

conflict was "putting at stake peace and stability across the entire

region".

He said Albanian terrorists had to be "starved of resources" by securing

the border with Albania against weapon smuggling. But at the same time

"Belgrade must know that the return ticket to Europe depends on their

behaviour over the Kosovo question". However, Mr Kinkel stopped well

short of mentioning the possibility of use of force by the US,

underlining Bonn's unease about such a threat.

Mr Milosevic insists that Kosovo is Serbia's internal issue but

diplomats in Belgrade believe he will try to negotiate a political

settlement, possibly with foreign mediation, once his security forces

have eradicated bases of the Kosovo Liberation Army. The greatest fear

of western governments is that the conflict will spiral out of control

before Mr Milosevic is ready to talk.

Albania yesterday put its small army on alert along the border with

Serbia.

Kosova Information Center KOSOVA DAILY REPORT # 1363-A Prishtina, 6 March 1998

First Edition:

Serb Forces Resume Attack on Albanian Villages in Drenica

PRISHTINA, March 6 (KIC) - There was random shooting all night long in the Drenica villages, which were under continued heavy Serb fire yesterday (Thursday). Today morning, an armed attack resumed on Prekaz, a village in Skenderaj (in Serbian 'Srbica') in central Kosova which bore the brunt of Serb police and military operations yesterday. Sources from surrounding villages said Serb forces have started shelling other houses of the Jasharaj family compound in Prekaz, which had survived yesterday's shelling. Serb Ministry of the Interior said Thursday it had killed 20 Albanians in the village, branding the victims 'terrorists'. The number of dead and wounded among local Albanians could be much higher, given the fact that heavy Serb shelling targeted the villages all day, leaving at least a dozen houses ruined or burned down to the ground. A sources at Llausha, a village bordering on Prekaz, said today morning two busloads of Serb policemen had reached Prekaz. Sources from Mitrovica tell today that fresh Serb forces were heading for Skenderaj. Reports from Gllogovc said two armored cars and two busloads of Serb policemen left the town this morning, leaving for Skenderaj. Shooting with fire-arms were reported in the Rakinica and A^areva villages in Skenderaj. Reports from Mitrovica and Vushtrri speak of hundreds of Albanian families having fled the Drenica area and to have sought shelter elsewhere. A number of evacuee families are reported to have gone to Lipjan, Shtimje and Gllogovc.

Serb Forces Besiege Llausha

PRISHTINA, March 6 (KIC) - Huge Serbian forces have reinforced today the siege of Llausha, a village bordering on Prekaz. An LDK source from Llausha told KIC at 9 o'clock Serb forces have been advancing from all sides towards the village. Women and children are in the village, so a Serb massacre could be terrible, the source concluded.

At Least 50 Albanians Feared Killed in Prekaz

PRISHTINA, March 6 (KIC) - At least 50 local Albanians were killed by Serb forces attacking Prekaz village Thursday, local sources said. It is feared during the Serb armed attack the members of the family of Shaban Jashari, including many children, have been killed. The homestead of Shaban Jashari was burned to the ground, eye- witness said last evening. The family of Shaban Jashari was attacked by Serb forces on 2 January 1988. Two young women in the family had received gunshot wounds.

Serb Police Mendacity

PRISHTINA, March 6 (KIC) - The Serbian Ministry of the Interior accused yesterday the media for writing falsehoods, attributing to Serb police what it had not done. Yet, this very Ministry, in a statement issued last evening, engages in falsehoods itself. It said during actions of 28 February and 1 March in Drenica, Serb police forces killed 16 Albanian 'terrorists'. It is a commonplace fact by now that the following 25 Albanians were killed last weekend: Beqir Sejdiu, Nazmi Sejdiu, Bekim Sejdiu, Bedri Sejdiu, Xhemshir Nebiu, Rukie Nebihu, Ilir Nebihu, Rexhep Rexhepi, Beqir Rexhepi, Muhamet Gjela, Naser Gjela, Ahmet Ahmeti (50), Gani Ahmeti (47), Ilmi Ahmeti (43), Ham&z Ahmeti (45), Driton Ahmeti (23), Naim Ahmeti (22), Basri Ahmeti (20), Shemsi Ahmeti (16), Lumni Ahmeti (20), Elhami Ahmeti (20), Behram Fazliu (65), Ibish Rama, Ismail Behrami dhe Bekim Deliu. Members of four families (ten Ahmeti ones) make the majority of those killed by Serb forces in their own houses or yards.

Kosova Information Center KOSOVA DAILY REPORT # 1363-b Prishtina, 6 March 1998

Second Edition: 10:30

Serb Forces Launch All-out Attack at Llausha Village, Drenica

PRISHTINA, March 6 (KIC) - An LDK source from Llausha told Kosova Information Center (KIC) on the phone at 10:20 that Serb forces launched a huge attack at Llausha village, near Skenderaj. The village is being shelled with armament of all kind from several places, including Prekaz and Klina e Ul&t villages, the sources said. At 8 o'clock this morning the same source told KIC that mainly children and women were still in the village as most of men had moved out during the night. Today morning, an armed attack resumed on Prekaz, a village which bore the brunt of Serb police and military operations yesterday.