Nato sends reinforcements as Kosovo violence continues

Nato-led peacekeepers deployed more troops to regain control of Kosovo today, promising to take harsh measures against rioters – even if it means some of them may be shot.

Ethnic Albanians set Serb homes and churches on fire yesterday as Kosovo convulsed in a second day of violence – the worst since the province’s war ended in 1999. At least 31 people have been killed and hundreds wounded in clashes that have rocked every major city in the province.

In revenge, Serbian nationalists set mosques elsewhere on fire and threatened to retaliate with “slaughter and death”, even as the alliance sent reinforcements to ease the threat of renewed conflict in the volatile Balkans.

Stung by the lawlessness that has left Serb enclaves in ruins, peacekeepers promised to respond to provocations with a level of force not used here in the past.

Some peacekeepers were already carrying out the orders, shooting and wounding protesters who used violence in clashes yesterday, said Colonel Horst Pieper, the chief Nato spokesman in Kosovo. The number of injured peacekeepers rose to 51 since clashes began on Wednesday.

“The soldiers … will not tolerate those who seek to cause harm,” said US Brigadier General Rick Erlandson said in a statement. “My soldiers will immediately and forcefully stop anyone who violates the rule of law.”

Kosovo’s crisis erupted on Wednesday, when ethnic Albanians blamed Serbs for the drownings of two children and began rampaging in revenge.

The ensuing violence reignited long simmering tensions between Serbs and ethnic Albanians that have spilled beyond Kosovo’s borders into the Serbian heartland.

Serbia-Montenegro’s military raised the combat readiness of some units to their highest level, and Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian prime minister, Bajram Rexhepi, warned that the situation was still not under control. The US Embassy in Belgrade closed temporarily to the public as a precaution.

UN international staff were evacuated from the flashpoint city of Kosovska Mitrovica, where the unrest erupted on Wednesday, to a safer location, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in New York.

A UN official in Kosovo said that the staff was relocated from the ethnic Albanian-dominated southern part of the town to a French military base late yesterday.

But the UN and Nato, which was bolstering its 18,500-member peacekeeping force with 1,100 more troops from Britain, Italy and the US, urged restraint in Kosovo and elsewhere in the turbulent region.

“Nato is very worried about what is happening in Kosovo at the moment,” Nato Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said during a conference in Slovakia.

Unwilling to take any chances, the alliance deployed 350 US and Italian soldiers from Bosnia to Kosovo, and Britain said it would send 750 troops in the next few days. A military transport aircraft landed at Kosovo’s airport early today with 100 fresh British troops, who strode down the tarmac, rifles in hand.

German foreign minister Joschka Fischer discussed Kosovo with Mr Annan yesterday and warned against overstretching the alliance with peacekeeping missions in Afghanistan or expanding them into Iraq.

“Don’t forget the Balkans, and we have learned – or we had to learn it yesterday again – how sensitive the situation is there,” Mr Fischer said.

Arsonists set fire to several Serb houses in Obilic, an ethnically mixed town west of the provincial capital, Pristina, forcing UN police and Nato troops to evacuate dozens of Serbs. Similar scenes were reported elsewhere where Serbs live.

A mob surrounded and set an Orthodox church on fire in a Pristina suburb. Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets to push people back. Gunshots were heard throughout the capital and military helicopters hovered over the crowds.

In retaliation for the violence, mobs across Serbia set mosques on fire.

The violence underscored the divisions that have polarised Kosovo’s mostly Muslim ethnic Albanians, who want independence from Serbia, and Orthodox Christian Serbs, a minority in Kosovo who consider the province their ancient homeland.

Harri Holkeri, Kosovo’s top UN official, appealed for an end to the violence, warning that it undermined the international community’s efforts to reconcile the two sides after the war. The conflict killed about 10,000 people, mostly ethnic Albanians.

It ended in 1999 after Nato air strikes halted former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic’s brutal crackdown on ethnic Albanian militants seeking independence. Ethnic Albanians since have mounted periodic revenge attacks on Serbs.

The province is UN-administered but remains part of Serbia, with its final status to be decided by the world body. Ethnic Albanians are frustrated that the international officials who rescued Kosovo from the tyranny of Milosevic have failed to deliver on what for them is the only issue: independence.