British Troops Fire Plastic Bullets in Kosovo Clash
By REUTERS
Filed at 1:48 p.m. ET
KOSOVSKA MITROVICA, Yugoslavia (Reuters) - British troops fired plastic bullets and drove tanks through the streets of the Kosovo town of Mitrovica on Thursday to scatter hundreds of ethnic Albanians hurling rocks and petrol bombs.
The clashes were the latest in three days of confrontations between ethnic Albanians and the NATO-led KFOR peacekeeping force in Mitrovica, where clashes have flared repeatedly since Kosovo came under international control in 1999.
``The violence has been going on long enough. We will deal with aggressive behavior with a positive response. They have to realize they cannot attack KFOR soldiers,'' said Major Tim Pearce, a spokesman for British forces.
Kosovo's U.N. governor held a crisis meeting on Thursday in the ethnically divided town with leaders of the province's Albanian majority. They condemned the violence and said they worried that international civilians could be targeted next.
The British soldiers, sent to back up French forces who normally secure the town, drove through Mitrovica's run-down industrial cityscape in several tanks, flanked by troops carrying full-length riot shields and firing plastic bullets.
Ethnic Albanians, who have repeatedly accused the French of failing to protect Albanians in the Serb-dominated north of Mitrovica, began targeting KFOR after a 15-year-old Albanian boy was killed there on Monday.
26 WOUNDED
An Albanian doctor said 26 people were slightly wounded in fighting that appeared to have subsided by early evening. A Reuters photographer suffered burns and hearing loss from a stun grenade.
French and British officers had no word of any casualties in their ranks on Thursday. More than 20 KFOR soldiers were wounded, one seriously, on Wednesday.
``We strongly condemn the violence that has occurred in Mitrovica over the past several days,'' said Hans Haekkerup, the Danish head of Kosovo's U.N.-led administration, reading from a statement agreed with Albanian leaders.
``We are very concerned about potential attacks on international civilian representatives,'' the statement said, calling for extra KFOR troops and police.
Oliver Ivanovic, the leader of the town's Serb community, accused Albanians of provoking the latest violence to distract from ethnic Albanian guerrilla attacks in southern Serbia.
``The entire crisis has been staged in order to divert attention from southern Serbia to Kosovska Mitrovica,'' Ivanovic said, also accusing KFOR and the province's U.N. administration (UNMIK) of not protecting Kosovo's beleaguered Serb minority.
CALLS FOR FRENCH DEPARTURE
Thursday's violence began after young protesters gathered at the southern end of the main bridge over the river Ibar, which divides Mitrovica into Albanian and Serb-dominated sections.
They marched to another bridge and threw some rocks at a checkpoint run by French soldiers.
The soldiers responded by firing stun grenades, which make a booming sound intended to scatter crowds in panic.
Some older Albanians appeared and told the crowd to stop the violence. They left and clashes began again in the center of the city around French military bases.
Some young Albanians in the crowd said they wanted French forces out of Mitrovica, blaming them for ethnic Albanians' failure to return to homes in the north they fled during NATO's 1999 bombing campaign.
``We will go on like this. We will go home when Mitrovica is liberated,'' said 23-year-old Fejz Ademi.
Serb leaders say ethnic Albanians should not return to their homes in the north until Serbs can return to parts of Kosovo that they fled during ethnic Albanian vengeance attacks that followed the NATO bombing campaign.