Riots Flare in Tense Kosovo City
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 3:13 p.m. ET
KOSOVSKA MITROVICA, Yugoslavia (AP) -- NATO-led peacekeepers talked some ethnic Albanian crowds into dispersing on Thursday and fired tear gas and stun grenades at others rioting near a base used by French soldiers in this tense Kosovo city.
As confrontations in Kosovska Mitrovica went into their fourth straight day, NATO's top general in Kosovo and the province's chief U.N. administrator met with local leaders in efforts to end the violence.
The violence ended by nightfall. Lt. Gen. Carlo Cabigiosu and U.N. administrator Hans Haekkerup condemned the unrest, in a joint statement urging ``all citizens to remain calm and refrain from further acts of violence.''
The statement, also signed by the city's ethnic Albanian leaders, said there was a need for more troops and police in the city; the extension of a so-called confidence zone set up nearly a year ago on both sides of the main bridge separating its Serb and ethnic Albanian communities; and creating conditions for freedom of movement and the return of displaced families.
``We will use all forces we have available to increase our presence on the ground,'' Cabigiosu told reporters. The Italian general, the commander of the NATO-led Kosovo peace force, pledged that his troops would continue using restraint, adding: ``We will not start a war here.''
NATO's secretary general, Lord Robertson, used tougher language, telling reporters in Oslo, Norway, that peacekeepers in Kosovska Mitrovica would ``continue to be robust with those who seek to challenge law and order.''
In Budapest, Hungary, Adm. James O. Ellis, commander in chief of NATO in southern Europe, also condemned the violence, ``directed against the very forces that were introduced to preserve the well-being of both parties in the Kosovo conflict.''
The industrial city has been rocked by unrest since Monday, when a 15-year-old ethnic Albanian was killed in a grenade attack.
On Wednesday, demonstrators throwing rocks and fire bombs injured 21 peacekeepers. Most, if not all, appeared to be French.
Several people were injured Thursday, including a photographer for the Reuters news agency, hospital officials said. The extent of their injuries was not immediately known.
Patrols of predominantly British peacekeepers -- some with attack dogs -- approached groups of nervous-looking residents and told them to disperse.
The move to clear the area came after scuffles broke out in another part of the city earlier in the day. Both areas are near the French base.
In the earlier incident, demonstrators had targeted French soldiers guarding a small bridge spanning the Ibar River, which separates the city into an ethnic Albanian southern part and a predominantly Serb northern section.
French soldiers used tear gas and stun grenades to break up the melee.
Many ethnic Albanians in Kosovo distrust the French peacekeepers because they believe they are pro-Serb.
Kosovska Mitrovica remains the province's most tense town, more than 1 1/2 years after NATO ended its 78-day air war. The air campaign was launched to force former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to halt his crackdown on ethnic Albanians.
Kosovo is a province of Serbia, the larger of Yugoslavia's two republics.
This week's riots in the city 25 miles from the capital, Pristina, come nearly a year after massive clashes left a dozen people killed and dozens more injured.