PRISHTINA, Jan 27 (KIC) - Heavy Serbian military and paramilitary police forces launched early in the morning today (Wednesday) an artillery attack against a number of villages in the Podujeva area, north of the capital Prishtina, local sources said. The Serb onslaught against the villages of Lupç and Majac, ten miles north of Prishtina, was kicked off at 06:00 CET., to only be extended a bit later to the villages northwards - Lluzhan, Buricë, Gllamnik, Llapashticë, Peran and Obrançë. Around 9:30 CET, houses were reported trembling in the town of Podujeva, 30 km north of Prishtina, from the heavy Serbian shelling of the area west of the Prishtina-Podujeva highway. Schools have been closed today in Podujeva, and there is only a restricted movement of citizens in the town of some 20,000, 99 percent of whom Albanians. Serbian tanks and other heavy combat equipment left the Dumosh airfield, southeast of Podujeva, and headed towards the area of attack overnight, local sources said. Serbs have massed troops and tanks in the northern Llapi region of Kosova, whose administrative capital is Podujeva, in the past month. Serbian military and paramilitary police launched a four-day offensive in Llapi region around Christmas, which left at least 18 Albanians killed, most of whom noncombatants. On 9 January, Serb forces renewed their attack in the area, despite assertions that a truce had been established under the mediation of the OSCE KVM to restore the October cease-fire. Local Albanian resistance forces, the Kosova Liberation Army (UçK), put up strong resistance to the Serb aggressor army and paramilitary police in the last two offensives around the New Year, as well as an earlier offensive, last September.

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Serbian Military Shells Albanian Villages in Podujeva Area

PRISHTINA, Jan 27 (KIC) - Heavy Serbian military and paramilitary police forces launched early in the morning today (Wednesday) an artillery attack against a number of villages in the Podujeva area, north of the capital Prishtina, local sources said. The Serb onslaught against the villages of Lupç and Majac, ten miles north of Prishtina, was kicked off at 06:00 CET., to only be extended a bit later to the villages northwards - Lluzhan, Buricë, Gllamnik, Llapashticë, Peran and Obrançë. Around 9:30 CET, houses were reported trembling in the town of Podujeva, 30 km north of Prishtina, from the heavy Serbian shelling of the area west of the Prishtina-Podujeva highway. Schools have been closed today in Podujeva, and there is only a restricted movement of citizens in the town of some 20,000, 99 percent of whom Albanians. Serbian tanks and other heavy combat equipment left the Dumosh airfield, southeast of Podujeva, and headed towards the area of attack overnight, local sources said. Serbs have massed troops and tanks in the northern Llapi region of Kosova, whose administrative capital is Podujeva, in the past month. Serbian military and paramilitary police launched a four-day offensive in Llapi region around Christmas, which left at least 18 Albanians killed, most of whom noncombatants. On 9 January, Serb forces renewed their attack in the area, despite assertions that a truce had been established under the mediation of the OSCE KVM to restore the October cease-fire. Local Albanian resistance forces, the Kosova Liberation Army (UçK), put up strong resistance to the Serb aggressor army and paramilitary police in the last two offensives around the New Year, as well as an earlier offensive, last September. Latest report: Serb shelling continuing in the afternoon Local LDK sources told the KIC around 13:00 CET the Serb shelling was more intensively directed at the villages of Lupç, Majac, Shakovicë, Buricë, and Konushevc. There has been no immediate word on casualties. The Albanian population of the attacked area has fled to the relative safety in the town of Podujeva and in outlying villages. The refugee population faces a humanitarian catastrophe unless NGOs are able to offer them badly needed help, the LDK chapter in Podujeva said.

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President Clinton Authorizes up to $25 Million in Humanitarian Aid to Kosova

The White House had issued a similar presidential determination in September 1998 PRISHTINA, Jan 27 (KIC) - The White House released a Presidential Determination January 26 authorizing up to $25 million in aid "to meet the urgent and unexpected needs of refugees, displaced persons, conflict victims, and other persons at risk due to the Kosova crisis." President Clinton determined that "it is important to the [U.S.] national interests that up to $25 million be made available from the US Emergency Refugee and Migration Assistance Fund to meet the urgent and unexpected needs of refugees and migrants." In the Memorandum for the Secretary of State, the White House said "these funds may be used, as appropriate, to provide contributions to international and nongovernmental organizations". The Secretary of State is "authorized and directed to inform the appropriate committees of the Congress of this determination and the use of funds under this authority, and to arrange for the publication of this determination in the Federal Register". In a similar presidential determination, President Clinton authorized September 9, 1998, $20 million in aid to meet the urgent and unexpected needs of refugees, displaced persons, conflict victims, and other persons at risk due to the Kosova crisis. Some $11 million in emergency assistance had been already provided to Kosova by then.

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Evidence on the Bodies of Albanians May Have Been Tampered With

Says Finnish forensics expert, Helena Ranta PRISHTINA, Jan 27 (KIC) - Finnish forensic experts investigating how 45 ethnic Albanian villagers were killed in Reçak on 15 January may be unable to determine whether they were massacred or shot in battle because of the possibility of evidence-tampering, the lead pathologist said Tuesday, the Associated Press (AP) reported. Ambassador William Walker, the head of the OSCE Kosova Verification Mission (KVM), accused Yugoslav security forces of killing the civilians and called the slayings a massacre. Helen Ranta, the chief of the Finnish forensic team examining the bodies of the Albanians, stressed Tuesday that she was not accusing anyone of tampering with the bodies, but said the possibility could not be ruled out. The bodies, including a boy and three women, were moved without supervision - first by ethnic Albanians to a mosque in Reçak and later by Serb police to the Prishtina morgue. In addition, Ranta said Yugoslav authorities had already conducted autopsies on about a third of the bodies before her team arrived. "The problem as we see it, it is difficult to reconstruct the 'chain of custody' over the bodies," Ranta was quoted as saying. "There is a possibility of contamination and a possibility of fabrication of evidence." Ranta said some of the bodies tested positive on paraffin tests, indicating they may have fired a weapon. But paraffin tests are widely discounted in U.S. courts because tobacco and fertilizers often give the same results as gunpowder, the AP writes, recalling that the dead were mostly farmers in a region where smoking is nearly universal among Albanian males. The chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal in the Hague, Louise Arbour, said last week she would take very seriously any evidence of tampering with the bodies. She said such an act could be seen as displaying "consciousness of guilt" by the perpetrator, AP recalls. Yugoslav authorities have permitted the Finnish team to examine the bodies, but have refused to permit the U.N. war crimes tribunal to conduct an on-site investigation. The Presidency of the Democratic League of Kosova (LDK), President Ibrahim Rugova's party, said in a press release on Tuesday "justice cannot be done by making unprincipled concessions to the Serbian military, paramilitary and police forces". "The investigation of the war crimes by the Hague Tribunal is a legitimate demand made by the international institutions, and, as such, it should be implemented fully", the LDK said. "The investigation of the Albanians massacred in Reçak is being carried by a Finnish team, together with Serbs and others chosen [by the Serb regime]. Replacing the expertise of the Hague Tribunal for War Crimes with individuals and institutions preferred by the Serb regime is unacceptable", the LDK presidency concluded.

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Serb Official Lies: Albanians Killed in Rakovinë Died in Traffic Accident!

The five Albanians, including two children and a woman, had in fact been killed by large caliber weapons PRISHTINA, Jan 27 (KIC) - The five Albanians - two men, a woman, and two children - killed by Serbian forces Sunday evening in Rakovinë village of Gjakova. Shaban Tafë Kelmendi (45) and his two sons, Haxhi (11) and Besim (12), as well as husband and wife Hysen Kurti (40) and Sanije Kurti (30) were killed in a tractor wagon. They were on their way to Cërmjan village of Gjakova, and were hit while doing some fixing in the tractor, sources said. The bodies of the killed Albanians were taken to the Gjakova morgue on Monday, and transferred by the Serb police to the Prishtina morgue on Tuesday. The bodies found Monday appeared to have been shot several times at close range, the Associated Press said, adding that two victims, the husband and wife, were found slumped in the cab, whereas on the trailer piled with hay and grain lay the bodies of a father and his two sons, about 10 and 12 years old. "The faces of all three were disfigured". The Albanians seemed to have been killed by large caliber weapons. Meanwhile, the Serbian ('Yugoslav') federal health minister, Miodrag Kovac, told reporters in Prishtina Tuesday the five Albanians died in "a traffic accident". When reporters told him there were pictures in which it could be seen the five hald been killed by high-caliber gunfire, the Serb minister replied; "I got the information on the traffic accident from my colleagues. I was told this." This pattern of Serb officials' mendacity has become a daily routine. The murder of five Albanians in Rakovinë was the worst atrocity in Kosova after the massacre of 45 Albanian civilians in Reçak on 15 January, which the Milosevic people tried to present as the killing of Albanian 'terrorists', despite the fact that they were all unarmed local villagers in civilian clothes, and including children and women, but also many elderly men. When Ambassador William Walker, the OSCE chief verifier in Kosova, said the Serb forces had carried out a massacre, the Serb regime threatened to expel him.

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Serbian Forces Crack down on Albanians in Vushtrri, Klina, Gjakova

PRISHTINA, Jan 27 (KIC) - Heavy Serbian police forces blocked a number of streets in the town of Vushtrri ('Vucitrn') today, ill- treating Albanian passers-bye, local LDK sources said. Two Serb army armored APCs left the Serb army barracks in the town, whereas heavy Serb police reportedly headed to the village of Stanoc i Poshtëm. Around lunch-time today, Serb forced started firing the villages of Novolan and Vërrnicë, local sources said, failing to say anything about possible casualties or other consequences. A column of Serbian police, consisting of 4 armored vehicles and a jeep, left the town of Mitrovica for Skenderaj at 10:20 CET today. The Albanian population of the villages of Sferkë e Gashit and Dush, municipality of Klina, fled their homes today and went to the nearby woods, LDK sources in Malisheva reported. The Albanians fled after a Serb military convoy seemed about to enter the villages, they added. Tens of Serb soldiers and police embarked Tuesday on a campaign of raids in the Albanian villages of the Reka e Keqe, municipality of Gjakova. Eighteen Albanian households were raided in the Rexhaj family compound of Dobrosh village alone. The residents fled to the nearby woods in panic. Serb forces raided a number of Albanian families in the villages of Sheremet, Rracaj and Dallashaj yesterday. The households of the Shala family compound in Cërmjan village of Gjakova were reported raided yesterday, too. In the village of Bec, police raided the household of Binak Maxhuni, and abused physically his three sons, Faruk (23), Dukagjin (21), and Përparim. Today, some 20 Serb policemen were involved in raiding the house of Ramadan Hima in Skivjan village. He was arrested and taken to the police in Gjakova. Many Albanian residents of Cërmjan village have fled their homes in fear of further Serb police raids.

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Body Found Near Shupkovc Village of Mitrovica

PRISHTINA, Jan 27 (KIC) - The body of a dead man has been spotted lying on the street near the Shupkovc village of Mitrovica, local LDK sources said. No other details surrounding his identity and the circumstances of his death have been made known.

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KOSOVA (tensions mount - Gjakovë)

New wave of arrests in Gjakovë municipality

Gjakovë, 26 January (ARTA) 2030CET --

Following the massacre of five Albanian civilians from the villages of Rakovicë and Cërmjan, in the Gjakovë municipality, the bodies of which were transferred to the Forensic Institute in Prishtina on Tuesday, the situation in the region has deteriorated even more.

A convoy comprised of tanks, APCs and other Serb police terrain vehicles, were spotted around the villages of Ramoc and Nec today, Albanian sources from the ground informed on Tuesday.

A makeshift checkpoint was set in the Gjakovë suburb of Jahoc, where two Albanians were claimed arrested. There is no information regarding the identity or pretext for the arrest.

There are reports that military forces have been stationed, in the village of Shishman i Bokës, in Sadik Zenun Avdyli's house, located in the neighborhood of Mazrekaj.

On the other hand, there are claims that Lutfi Isufi (32) from Gjakovë, and Rrustem Aliu (60), from Gërgoc, were arrested in the village of Nec on Monday, as they were travelling to Gjakovë.

The CDHRF branch in Gjakovë notifies that Avdyl, Maxhun and Hysë Sylaj, from the village of Rrypaj, arrested previously, were sent to the District Prison in Pejë.

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KOSOVA (shooting - Deçan)

Albanian in his fifties killed - his son wounded

Deçan, 26 January (ARTA) 2030CET --

VJ forces stationed in the Junik neighborhood of Pepshi, used heavy artillery to shoot in the direction of the Kosova-Albanian border last night, the "KD" correspondent reported Tuesday.

He claimed that Serb police units, stationed in the villages of Gllogjan and Junik, attacked the front-line villages of Dashinoc, Ratishë e Epërme and Ratishë e Poshtme, starting from Tuesday morning.

On the other hand, Musë Adem Mulliqi (51) was killed at around 1930CET on Monday, and his son Skënder (25), was wounded, near the bridge that runs over Radoniq, in Llukë e Epërme, the CDHRF branch in Deçan reported. These Albanians were attacked as they were returning home from a visit they had made to Llukë e Poshtme. Local villagers say that they were attacked by gunfire coming from a police terrain vehicle, which left for Deçan in haste.

The OSCE KVM sent Skender, who was wounded in four places, to a hospital, where he was operated immediately. His life is now out of danger. His father, who received 11 bullets, died in the spot. He was buried in his village on Tuesday.

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KOSOVA (Serb provocation - Mitrovicë)

More provocation for Mitrovicë

Mitrovicë, 26 January (ARTA) 2030CET --

Two terrain vehicles and a jeep loaded with Serb police, passed through the Mitrovicë suburbs of "Ura e gjakut" and Shipol, provoking occasional passersby, the "KD" correspondent reported on Tuesday.

The local population, which fled these areas following the Serb police incursion some time ago, still hesitate to return to their abandoned homes.

Serb police reportedly beat several Albanians travelling to Mitrovicë and Bajgorë, at their stationing point in "Tuneli i Parë".

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KOSOVA (police brutality - Lipjan)

Albanian killed by prison torture

Lipjan, 26 January (ARTA) 2030CET --

The OSCE Verification Mission in Prishtina and the CDHRF branch in Gllogoc confirmed that 33-year-old Hysni Dan Murseli's body has been at the Prishtina hospital morgue since 9 January. A group of Serb civilians arrested Hysni and two of his cousins in the village of Magurë, Lipjan municipality, on 8 January. They were sent to the police station in Lipjan where they underwent severe tortures. Hysni died the next day from tortures at the Lipjan prison.

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KOSOVA (repositioning - Suharekë)

Added Serb police and military movements

Suharekë, 26 January (ARTA) 2030CET --

Increased movements of Serb police\military forces were noticed in Suharekë on Tuesday, Albanian sources from the field reported. According to these sources, a convoy comprised of ten "VJ" armored vehicles, passed through the center of Suharekë at 0930CET, heading towards Duhël. Another larger convoy, including some 30 military vehicles, was seen coming from the direction of Shtime at 1030CET, apparently heading for Prizren.

The CDHRF in Suharekë, on the other hand, reported on the arrest of three Albanians as they stood in line to register their cars.

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KOSOVA (KD interview with deputy head of the OSCE mission in Kosova)

"There are no divergences of opinions within the KVM regarding Reçak"

Nebi Qena

Prishtina, 26 January (ARTA) 2130CET --

Ambassador Gabriel Keller, deputy head of the OSCE Mission in Kosova, former French Ambassador to "Yugoslavia", was accused of having pro-Serb convictions for some time. There were claims that Keller, does not have friendly relations with the head of the OSCE mission in Kosova, William Walker

KD: Lately there has been a lot of talk of some kind of animosity between you and Walker, we have a "Financial Times" article about that. You denied that, can you be more precise?

Keller: I sent a request for a "dementiae" to the "Financial Times". I don't know weather it was done or not. But what I want to stress is that all those stories come from an ironic translations of my statements in French to the French television LCI, into Serbian, and this was used into a completely different way from what it was meant, because I said "there are very strong suspicions that the Serb forces did the killings" and it was translated into "there are strong doubts about the fact that the Serb forces did the killing", which as you see means exactly the contrary. So this wrong translation was used by the "FT" as if it was the right one, and it served as basis for this rumor, because it is a rumor. There is no difference on the approach of these events, between Ambassador Walker and myself. There is no animosity. We are working in a friendly and a constructive atmosphere, even if some times, obviously we have our personal opinions and our approach to some other problems, but this is rather a question of personality than of political opinions or of different assessments of what is happening here. For, this so-called animosity between Ambassador Walker and me, I stress very strongly that it is a "rumor" and I deny it.

KD: While Walker was in the USA, there were some statements given by the KVM, which were hostile to the KLA, accusing the KLA of breaching the truss. This coincides with the statement of the French Defense Minister, Alain Richard, who stated that "the KLA is a de-stabilizing factor in the region".

Keller: The statement by Alain Richard, by my memory, it was well before the KVM release. There is no link at all. I am not in a position here as an international civil servant, I am a member of the OSCE so I am not in a position to comment or, of course to criticize any Government statement, would it be the French Government or the America, or what ever. If my re-correction is correct, Richard's statement was in sort of a more general context. That means it was an appreciation of events, going back to several weeks or more. The press release from the KVM, was totally different. It stated that in the past 36 hours, the main responsible for the breaches of the cease-fire, was the KLA, and we have a very precise number of examples to quote. The first one was the killing in an ambush was the killing of the three Serb policemen, in an ambush. The second one was the taking prisoner of those eight VJ soldiers. And we want to stress very strongly that during this period of 36 hours, our assessment was that the KLA was breaching the cease-fire, more than the other side. But, it is not the first time that we said strong words to either the KLA or the "VJ". That doesn't mean at all that we consider broadly that one side is more responsible than the other for the breaches of the cease-fire and that will not prevent us from stating again if this happens again, that one side or another is mainly responsible. Of course, these are the ups and downs of a very volatile situation and we are here to verify this and to state clearly to the international community and the international opinion that one side or another is more or less responsible for the breaches of the cease-fire. For instance, after the killings in Reçak, our statement was not at all a statement of Ambassador Gabriel Keller about the Keller attitude. It was a press release by the KVM, which was agreed by all the deputies head of mission, which means the Norwegian, English, German, Russian and myself. You are right to say that it was during a time when Walker is in the state, but the rule when the head of the mission is away, there is an alternate who rules when he is away, and it was done with complete agreement of all the people that were present.

KD: Is that how you work. Do you differ 36 hours and try to blame someone. It seems a bit un-balanced, cause that was followed by an offensive in Podujev and the surrounding of several neighborhoods in Prishtina.

Keller: I hope you do not say that the statements of the KVM are provoking the events here. As in fact they are a reaction of the events here. Let me give you an example of how we work. We have reports, very regularly, which are in internal use, stating what has happened in the last hours, but we also have more long term reports, of the week and month. For instance, regarding the Podujevë events that happened between the Christmas and New Year's Eve. We had a lot of negative events. It was the first serious breach of the cease-fire. KLA took over the fortified positions, abandoned by the "VJ" and the "MUP", close to the road to Podujevë, going from prishtina to Belgrade. There was a very excessive reaction by the "Yugoslav" forces. Altogether this was a double breach of the cease-fire and stated very clearly as we thought it happened. It is not the statements of the KVM that make the events here, its the events here that make the KVM statements, which aims at informing the international community of what it is happening here.

KD: You were accused of being pro-Serb?

Keller: And I think I am still going to be accused by a lot of very nasty things. Some of my words have been wrongly translated. If you can find in my previous statements, which were correctly reported and translated, something which can make you think that I am pro-Serb, than I would be very happy to see it and I would be very surprised. Of course, I was Ambassador to Belgrade, two years and a half ago, but it doesn't mean that I am a pro-Serb. I try to have the most objective impression of what is happening here. I appreciate the opinions that are expressed by all sides. I try to take them all under account. And I try to do my work as a professional diplomat in presenting the positions of both sides in the most positive way to the other one. We are in a country where because of the present situation, it is very difficult for everybody, especially for the actors in this conflict to keep a very cool mind. The diplomats must have a cooler mind, just in order to bring people together and to make them meet. I don't think my feelings towards the Serbs or Albanians are biased in any way. I have always had excellent relations with the people from both sides.

KD: You have also been accused, of trying to give another version of the events in Reçak, by engaging "Le Figaro" and "Le Monde" journalists, which gave some accounts that confronted the events, what Walker said.

Keller: This is again a completely false statement. I have never engaged anyone, and I can tell you that the tradition of the French press is not to be engaged by any official authority, be it governmental or international as I am. I didn't even know that those journalists were here. I didn't even know that they were even righting something on the Reçak events. I was extremely surprised not only to reed what they had written but also to learn afterwards that I was supposed to have engaged them and to whisper in their ear, what they would have to write. This is a complete nonsense and this comes together with this unfortunately wrong translation. There is no divergence of opinion within the KVM of what has happened in Reçak.

KD: And what has happened?

Keller: The very strong assumption now, that has been expressed by Ambassador Walker, is that the Serb forces are responsible for the killings.

KD: You call it killings, Walker called it a "massacre".

Keller: Yes, but I don't think, we are here in an area, where we must have a politically correct language. A killing is a massacre. I could as well call it a massacre. But, as you know, we have called experts from the international community. We have asked Arbor to come and make an investigation, because normally it should be The Hague Tribunal to investigate upon this matter. We have also a commission of the Finish forensic teams, who are now doing their work and I think we all have the same impression, feeling and opinion on what happened. But as more as conclusive words you use...

KD: I didn't use them, Walker did.

Keller: I know, but when I say you it is a people use. The more you use them, the more you think that the experts in the investigation are useless. It is a matter to be, lets say completely sure that everybody says, exactly what he has to say. Walker was at the site, he saw the victims. I have never been there. So, he has had the personal, very strong and stressing experience to see those bodies and it perfectly understandable that he uses ...

KD: You are trying to say that his statement came out at the moment, because he emotionally motivated?

Keller: No, I think you could refer to the statement of the German chairman of the office of the OSCE, Vollebaek. When he was here, he gave a statement which I think should have made the things clear for good. He said "I totally support and understand the statement of Walker, which was given just after". There was emotion in it, I don't mean it was only emotionally motivated, I said there was emotion in it, and normally, after seeing such a view it would be totally unbelievable that a normal person wouldn't be moved by this vies. Vollebaek said after that, "I also support the statement of Ambassador Keller, stating that we must be absolutely sure of what we say and what we state, because we are professionals, so that is why we ask those teams, first the international tribunal, Arbour and then the forensics from Finland to make sure that we are right, that we are in good direction. I couldn't have made a better synthesis of the two ways the same thing was expressed than the our chairman of the office of the OSCE. So I am extremely happy that he said that.

KD: You think that statement was more cautious than Walker's?

Keller: No, I wouldn't say that. Life is: different things, different people, different moments and different parts of yourself, expressing views. It is normal and understandable that people do not use the same exact words, because then we would be an army of robots.

KD: So you use different words?

Keller: We use different words, because we are different people and there are different times to speak, there are different words to even design the same things.

KD: But, if everybody says different words, then how do you agree upon one thing. Walker gives a severe statement, you give another statement and Vollebaek gives another one. What is the point of this mission? How can this mission function?

Keller: This mission functions with written statements and reports. And I think what is written is what makes the official assessment of the mission. But, mustn't prevent people from talking, have impressions and convictions.

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FOCUS-Serbs pound ethnic Albanians in Kosova (Reuters)

10:22 a.m. Jan 27, 1999 Eastern

By Kurt Schork

PODUJEVO, Serbia, Jan 27 (Reuters) - Serb artillery and tanks pounded rebel positions in northern Kosova on Wednesday in a battle a Western monitor said was the longest he'd seen in the area.

The battle around Podujevo came as the West moved closer to summoning the warring parties in Kosova to the peace table and the U.S. said it was close to gaining NATO consensus to strike Serbia unless it grants Kosova maximum autonomy.

Ethnic Albanian residents living around Podujevo abandoned their villages or huddled together in groups as Serb battle tanks, artillery and heavy machineguns ripped into suspected positions of the ethnic Albanian Kosova Liberation Army (KLA) from 8 a.m. (0700 GMT) on.

``The unusual thing about this fighting is that it started so early in the day,'' Andreas Vogel, head of the West's Kosova Verification Mission (KVM) office in Podujevo, told Reuters, adding that shooting usually did not start until noon or later.

``This is the first time there's been shooting throughout the whole day. What kind of provocation there was, and on which side, I don't know,'' he added.

He said Serbs had reported some of their special police in the area had come under sniper fire several days ago and a police commander had told him that ``if it happened again, they would respond.''

``Of course, these actions today have been prepared well in advance,'' Vogel said, noting that in some locations the KLA had positions within 100 metres (yards) of the main road which for Serb police was ``not tenable.''

Kosova's provincial information secretary Ivica Mihajlovic, quoted by Beta news agency, said in Pristina that rebels had attacked a police station in Luzane, near Podujevo, at about 10 p.m. on Tuesday and police had returned fire.

The only known reports of casualties from Wednesday's fighting, which could not be confirmed, came from a local KLA information officer, Ismet Cakiqi in Lapastica, who said two elderly men had been wounded in Konushevac.

Cakiqi said that according to KLA sources, about 10 armoured vehicles had left the Serbs' nearby Dumosh military base in the morning to ``take up positions and begin shelling our locations.''

He said the Serbs pounded the KLA with large-calibre guns, tanks and artillery.

``They are just teasing us, that doesn't mean they can break us,'' he said. He said KLA fighters under attack by two Serb tanks had hit one of them, forcing both to retreat.

The flghting came as a U.S. official briefing reporters on Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's plane to Cairo said NATO was close to consensus on warning Serbia of military action if it did not agree within weeks to give Kosova maximum autonomy.

The U.S. official also said phone calls to the foreign ministers of the six-nation Balkan Contact Group made it likely that the group would be able to meet this week.

Security has deteriorated in recent weeks in Kosova, whose nine-to-one ethnic Albanian majority overwhelmingly wants independence from Serbia.

The West has begun to fear a full-scale conflagration could erupt again, as it did last summer, unless both sides are forced to the peace table immediately.

It was the fourth time in just over a month that fighting has broken out in the villages around Podujevo.

Beginning early in the morning, regular army troops and units of the Interior Ministry's special police took up positions beginning some 15 km (10 miles) away from town, pointing their guns towards the west, Reuters reporters touring the area said.

In the village of Velika Reka, near Lapastica, 50-year-old Faik Hodolli said all of the women and children left two days earlier because of the shooting.

``The only people left here now are the men looking after their houses,'' he said.

Elsewhere in Kosova, Serbian and ethnic Albanian sources reported shooting in the village of Nevoljane, near Vucitrn, where the kidnapping of five elderly Serbs last week brought a sharp rebuke of the KLA from William Walker, chief of the Western verification mission in Kosova, before their release.

The Serb-run Pristina Media Centre said several Serb houses in Nevoljane came under heavy weapons fire and that police returned fire and arrested one attacker who was dressed in a uniform bearing a KLA insignia.

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Serbs use tanks, artillery in Kosova battle

By Kurt Schork

PODUJEVO, Serbia, Jan 27 - Serb artillery and tanks pounded rebel positions in northern Kosova on Wednesday in a battle a Western monitor said was the longest he'd seen in the area.

The battle around Podujevo came as the West moved closer to summoning the warring parties in Kosova to the peace table and the U.S. said it was close to gaining NATO consensus to strike Serbia unless it grants Kosova maximum autonomy.

Ethnic Albanian residents living around Podujevo abandoned their villages or huddled together in groups as Serb battle tanks, artillery and heavy machineguns ripped into suspected positions of the ethnic Albanian Kosova Liberation Army (KLA) from 8 a.m. (0700 GMT) on.

"The unusual thing about this fighting is that it started so early in the day," Andreas Vogel, head of the West's Kosova Verification Mission (KVM) office in Podujevo, told Reuters, adding that shooting usually did not start until noon or later.

"This is the first time there's been shooting throughout the whole day. What kind of provocation there was, and on which side, I don't know," he added.

He said Serbs had reported some of their special police in the area had come under sniper fire several days ago and a police commander had told him that "if it happened again, they would respond".

"Of course, these actions today have been prepared well in advance," Vogel said, noting that in some locations the KLA had positions within 100 metres (yards) of the main road which for Serb police was "not tenable".

Kosova's provincial information secretary Ivica Mihajlovic, quoted by Beta news agency, said in Pristina that rebels had attacked a police station in Luzane, near Podujevo, at about 10 p.m. on Tuesday and police had returned fire.

The only known reports of casualties from Wednesday's fighting, which could not be confirmed, came from a local KLA information officer, Ismet Cakiqi in Lapastica, who said two elderly men had been wounded in Konushevac.

Cakiqi said that according to KLA sources, about 10 armoured vehicles had left the Serbs' nearby Dumosh military base in the morning to "take up positions and begin shelling our locations".

He said the Serbs pounded the KLA with large-calibre guns, tanks and artillery.

"They are just teasing us, that doesn't mean they can break us," he said. He said KLA fighters under attack by two Serb tanks had hit one of them, forcing both to retreat.

The flghting came as a U.S. official briefing reporters on Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's plane to Cairo said NATO was close to consensus on warning Serbia of military action if it did not agree within weeks to give Kosova maximum autonomy.

The U.S. official also said phone calls to the foreign ministers of the six-nation Balkan Contact Group made it likely that the group would be able to meet this week.

Security has deteriorated in recent weeks in Kosova, whose nine-to-one ethnic Albanian majority overwhelmingly wants independence from Serbia.

The West has begun to fear a full-scale conflagration could erupt again, as it did last summer, unless both sides are forced to the peace table immediately.

It was the fourth time in just over a month that fighting has broken out in the villages around Podujevo.

Beginning early in the morning, regular army troops and units of the Interior Ministry's special police took up positions beginning some 15 km (10 miles) away from town, pointing their guns towards the west, Reuters reporters touring the area said.

In the village of Velika Reka, near Lapastica, 50-year-old Faik Hodolli said all of the women and children left two days earlier because of the shooting.

"The only people left here now are the men looking after their houses," he said.

Elsewhere in Kosova, Serbian and ethnic Albanian sources reported shooting in the village of Nevoljane, near Vucitrn, where the kidnapping of five elderly Serbs last week brought a sharp rebuke of the KLA from William Walker, chief of the Western verification mission in Kosova, before their release.

The Serb-run Pristina Media Centre said several Serb houses in Nevoljane came under heavy weapons fire and that police returned fire and arrested one attacker who was dressed in a uniform bearing a KLA insignia.

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Post-Mortem Changes Possible on Kosova Corpses-Finn (Reuters)

PRISTINA, Jan. 27, 1999 -- (Reuters) Some of the 45 corpses of ethnic Albanians allegedly massacred in Kosova may have been interfered with to make it appear they had died in fighting, the head of a team of Finnish forensic experts said on Tuesday.

Helena Ranta, speaking to Belgrade independent radio B92, was asked to comment on rumours that a paraffin glove test had been performed which Serb sources said had proved that almost all those killed had been firing weapons themselves.

"I am aware of these rumors and we have been discussing that among ourselves," she told B92's correspondent.

"The problem as we see in this particular case it is very difficult to reconstruct the chain of custody of the bodies from the site to the mosque, from the mosque to the department of forensic medicine," she added.

"So there is a possibility of contamination and, of course, we have to bear in mind there is also a possibility of fabrication of evidence. This will be discussed with Yugoslav authorities."

Ranta is leading a Finnish forensic team participating in the autopsy of 40 out of 45 bodies discovered in the village of Racak after fighting between Yugoslav security forces and separatist Kosova Liberation Army (KLA) guerrillas.

William Walker, the American head of the international monitors in Kosova, said Serbian police had massacred the villagers, most of whom appeared to have been killed at close range.

The authorities almost expelled Walker for his statement. They say the dead were rebels killed in fighting after they attacked police.

The head of a Yugoslav forensic team has already said the bodies show no signs of having been massacred.

Ranta and her team have distanced themselves from his comments, saying they will not be able to draw conclusions until the autopsies are completed.

"We are not here to accuse, prosecute or defend anyone. We will not make our report public, but hand it to the district court," she said.

The bodies were laid out in a local mosque a day after they were found in the village and then taken from there and brought into Pristina hospital Forensic Department by Serb police.

Ranta's team, working on behalf of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), is conducting autopsies with local forensic experts and a team from Belarus.

She said that before she joined them, a Yugoslav forensic team had performed autopsies on 16 bodies. Ranta said her team would review videos of those autopsies, X-ray the bodies and if necessary re-examine them.

Her team had completed autopsies on 15 bodies which had not been dealt with before, she said, adding that nine remained to be examined. She could not say when the work might end because of the need to translate all the paper work.

"We want to make sure that there is no misunderstanding," Ranta said, adding that she would give her report to the OSCE, the European Union and Pristina hospital as well as the court.

Ranta said she might also participate in the autopsy of five bodies of ethnic Albanians killed on Sunday night on a tractor in southwestern Kosova. They seemed to have been killed by large calibre weapons.

"It remains with the Forensic Department to make a final suggestion as to if there is any need for our assistance," she said. ( (c) 1998 Reuters)

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Divided West preaches unity to Kosova Albanians (Reuters)

06:03 a.m. Jan 27, 1999 Eastern

By Kurt Schork

PRISTINA, Serbia, Jan 27 (Reuters) - Kosova's fractious ethnic Albanian leadership is under fierce pressure to bury its differences, but the pressure comes from Western powers who are themselves deeply divided and unable to agree a common strategy.

``It's true, we have hurt ourselves with our internal disagreements,'' said one ethnic Albanian leader, who is an occasional participant in the Kosova peace process and asked not to be named.

``But I don't know whether to be angry or amused when Americans and Europeans lecture us about the need for unity. They can't decide themselves what to do about Kosova.''

Leaders of Kosova's ethnic Albanians, who make up 90 percent of the population in this southern Serbian province, are agreed on the goal of independence but not much else.

Their ``president,'' Ibrahim Rugova, a suave, chain-smoking, Sorbonne-educated intellectual, believes that patient, non- violent resistance will free his people from Serbian domination.

Adem Demaci, a tough firebrand who spent 28 years in prison for his political beliefs, supports the armed separatist struggle of the Kosova Liberation Army (KLA).

The two men detest one another and their personal animosity has vastly complicated international efforts to broker an interim political settlement for Kosova.

Desperate to forge ethnic Albanian consensus, the West is preparing to summon Rugova, Demaci and others -- including several younger leaders waiting in the wings and perhaps even KLA representatives -- to a venue outside Kosova.

The goal would be to browbeat the ethnic Albanians into forming a unified negotiating team that could be expected to sign up to and enforce an interim political settlement.

Unifying the ethnic Albanians would be the easy part. There is still the matter of the substance of a political deal that both they and Belgrade could agree to.

``We're not going to deal with the issue of independence and we're not going to change any borders and we are going to remove the Serb and Albanian military forces from the equation,'' an American diplomat told Reuters.

But observers say it is unlikely that ethnic Albanians will sign up for any deal that does not give them the option of at least a referendum in three to five years on the issue of independence.

Such a referendum would be anathema to Belgrade, which views Kosova as an integral part of Serbia, the larger of Yugoslavia's two remaining republics.

Recognising that a compromise deal might be rejected by one or both sides in Kosova, and that implementation could be as grudging as it has been in Bosnia, the international community is brooding on its coercive options.

NATO is the likely vehicle for any application of force, which is where the differences among the United States, Europe and Russia become problematic.

Washington, which has been driving international policy in the Balkans, believes in the efficacy of air power and is loath to commit ground forces to Kosova.

Europeans doubt air power alone could force the ethnic Albanians and Serbs to the table or make them implement a deal. They seem willing to send ground troops into the province as glue, but only if the United States signs up as well.

Russia -- not a NATO member, but an important political partner in Western deliberations over Kosova -- is sympathetic to Belgrade and resents any suggestion of the use of force against Yugoslavia.

One thing Western capitals seem to share is a greater sense of urgency over the Kosova conflict.

Left to their own devices, the KLA and the Serbian side seem ready, willing and able to plunge the province into a bloodbath come the spring.

The recent shooting deaths of 45 ethnic Albanians in Racak, under circumstances still hotly disputed, served as a wake-up call that conflagration might be only an incident away.

``Racak was a bit of a defining moment. I think that there's a realisation that this is our last chance before the abyss,'' a Western diplomat said.

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FOCUS-Major powers on brink of Kosova ultimatum (Reuters)

07:43 a.m. Jan 26, 1999 Eastern

By Paul Taylor, Diplomatic Editor

LONDON, Jan 26 (Reuters) - The major powers will on Friday challenge the leaders of Yugoslavia and the Kosova Albanians to open direct peace talks within 10 days or face NATO military action, Western diplomats said on Tuesday.

They said foreign ministers of the six-nation Contact Group would meet in Paris to issue a virtual summons to negotiate on a plan for interim self-rule in Kosova, once NATO has sent a fresh warning to Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic on Wednesday.

``There is a determination to get an interim political settlement agreed by the end of February, under the threat of military force if necessary,'' a senior NATO diplomat said.

The aim is to hold continuous face-to-face negotiations, probably in Vienna, mediated by U.S. envoy Christopher Hill, European Union Kosova emissary Wolfgang Petritsch and possibly Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Avdeyev.

``The idea is a Dayton-style lock-up under incredible international pressure. The longer the talks go on, the more imposition will replace negotiation,'' the diplomat said.

State Department spokesman James Rubin said in Moscow on Monday that U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright had not agreed to attend a Contact Group ministerial meeting this week.

Diplomats said Washington was just delaying its acceptance tactically to pressure European allies into issuing a prior NATO warning to Milosevic, and to make clear to Russia that it would not be allowed to block Western military pressure on Serbia.

``The Americans want NATO in the lead, not the Contact Group, which includes Russia. The military and the diplomatic elements must be in the same package,'' one diplomat said.

``The Americans were a bit cautious on two grounds. Firstly, they wanted the military threat to be very clear to Milosevic. Secondly, they were worried about the extent to which the Russians would come on board to a policy which would be a fast track to talks and which brought very strong pressure to bear on both parties,'' another said.

The Contact Group, in charge of Balkan diplomacy since the Bosnia war, comprises the United States, Russia, Britain, France, Germany and Italy.

A senior NATO general said the alliance had completed its military planning for possible action in Kosova and was in a position to intervene in the rebel Serbian province.

General Klaus Naumann, head of NATO's military committee, told ZDF German television that both Yugoslavia and the separatist Kosova Liberation Army (KLA) had to understand that NATO was ready to strike military targets if necessary.

``Both sides must be made to understand that they've reached the limit,'' Naumann said, adding that NATO would use all means to get the message across.

``Otherwise, the military option will be used,'' he said.

The alliance still has an activation order in force authorising air strikes against Yugoslavia if it does not comply with U.N. resolutions on Kosova.

Diplomats said NATO would put military pressure on the KLA to accept the talks by threatening to put troops into ports and airports in Albania to stem the flow of weapons to the guerrillas.

The KLA has so far refused to engage in negotiations that do not guarantee eventual independence and has rejected Hill's plan for a three-year interim period of autonomy followed by a review of the province's status.

The diplomats said NATO troops would guarantee an autonomy agreement, putting peacekeepers on the ground to protect both the ethnic Albanian majority and minority Serbs in Kosova.

The United States appears to be inching towards dropping its refusal to put ground troops in Kosova, a key condition for the European allies to participate in such a force.

State Department spokesman James Foley said on Monday that ``if it were deemed necessary by the international community to deploy some kind of international force to help implement an agreed peace settlement, then we would examine...what role, if any, the United States might play in such a scenario.''

Diplomats said winning congressional approval could be hard, but the United States was increasingly aware that preventing a full-scale war in Kosova was essential to avoid NATO's April 50th anniversary summit in Washington turning into a fiasco.

Naumann said the fighting in Kosova must stop and Milosevic must withdraw his security forces, as he agreed in October.

If NATO were to launch air strikes, they would be aimed ``solely at military targets,'' he said. The aim was to ``cripple the military machine that is waging the campaign in Kosova.''

The general also said NATO welcomed recent signals from the German government that German soldiers would take part in any NATO military intervention in Kosova.

The major diplomatic push comes against a background of worsening tension on the ground, with the risk of full-scale war once the winter ends in March.

On Monday, international monitors in Kosova discovered the bodies of five ethnic Albanians killed by machinegun fire.

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French aircraft carrier sails for Adriatic

PARIS, Jan 27 - The French aircraft carrier Foch sailed for the Adriatic overnight to reinforce NATO forces in case of military action against Yugoslavia in the Kosova crisis, defence ministry sources said on Wednesday.

The Foch, escorted by frigates Surcouf and Montcalm, was expected to reach the Adriatic by Thursday. It is carrying 14 Super-Etendard fighter-bombers and four reconnaissance Etendard aircraft.

France is a member of the six-nation Contact Group that is trying to bring about a political settlement between Belgrade and ethnic Albanian separatists in the Serbian province of Kosova.

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Albright pushes plan to give Albanians maximum self-rule

By BARRY SCHWEID AP Diplomatic Writer

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) -- Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said today she is talking to European allies about combining the threat of force and political action to achieve a settlement in Kosova.

"There is a need to act quickly," she said, expessing fear the conflict between Serbs and ethnic Albanians will worsen.

Albright told reporters after talks here with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak that "we obviously have been concerned about the deteriorating situation" in the Serbian province.

Other U.S. officials told reporters the aim is to confront Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic with a detailed formula for maximum self-rule for Albanians within a few weeks.

"We have been working to try to quicken a political solution there, keeping in mind what can be done through military pressure and the threat of force," Albright said at a joint news conference with Egyptian Foreign Minister Amr Moussa.

The officials, who spoke to reporters on Albright's flight here from Moscow on condition of anonymity, pointed out there were several hurdles still to be cleared, though.

These include a decision by the NATO military alliance to issue a clear warning Thursday to Milosevic at a meeting of the alliance Thursday in Brussels.

"The more credible the threat, the more likely that we can succeed in the political objectives," said State Department spokesman James P. Rubin.

Albright stressed that both the United States and its allies "were trying to get more involved in getting a political settlement" to the conflict between Serb forces and ethnical Albanian separatists. One U.S. official said Albright was acting out of concern that the situation in Kosova will only get worse, especially when winter gives way to spring in the Balkans.

Albright discussed her initiative in Moscow with Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, but was unable to persuade the Russians to support a NATO bombardment of Serb positions if Milosevic turns the plan down, the U.S. officials said.

Despite problems gaining a broad consensus, U.S. officials registered confidence that the plan had a good chance of gaining at least allied approval.

Russia on Tuesday endorsed the goal of maximum self-rule for the ethnic Albanians.

Since leaving Washington on Sunday, Albright has had several telephone discussions with the British, German, French, Dutch and Italian foreign ministers, as well as with Ivanov directly.

"We expect to be able to develop a series of coordinated and parallel military and political measures to bring President Milosevic into compliance and move both sides towards acceptance of a political settlement in Kosova," Rubin said.

The compliance Albright seeks would involve Milosevic honoring the terms of a cease-fire agreement negotiated in October with U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke. Key provisions called for the withdrawal of Serbian troops and special police units from Kosova and negotiations with Albanian leaders.

This time, the Clinton administration is laying out the aspects of self-rule, with officials saying the Albanians must be given executive, legislative and judicial control of their lives.

Depending on what NATO does on Thursday, Albright is likely to meet with the foreign ministers of Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Russia in Paris on Friday to nail down the terms. With the United States, they make up the so-called Contact Group, which overseas the restive Balkans.

Milosevic nullified autonomy in Kosova in 1989 and the Kosova Liberation Army is fighting to go beyond the restoration of self-rule proposed by the United States and secede from Yugoslavia.

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By MELISSA EDDY / Associated Press Writer

RACAK, Yugoslavia (AP) -- Nearly two weeks after the bodies of 45 ethnic Albanians were found here, 78-year-old Haxhi Musa ventured back with his granddaughter to gather the few belongings left from their home.

They don't know when, or if, they will return again.

The discovery Jan. 16 of what international peace verifiers call a massacre by Serb police brought new threats of NATO airstrikes and intensified diplomacy to solve the conflict between Serbs and ethnic Albanians in Kosova. The government says the victims were rebels killed in a gunbattle.

Talk of peace plans means little, however, for Musa and his family. Their two-story stucco home, among the most prosperous in this village, has been ransacked. The family's hope for the future has been shattered.

"The psychological effect of the massacre is that people are afraid of what will happen to them if they go back," said Ruzhdi Jashari, an ethnic Albanian human rights activist who distributes aid to displaced people around Racak. "This brought fear to the population. Now they can't find any security in Kosova."

Fear of the Serb police was clearly on the minds of Musa and his 16-year-old granddaughter, Vjollsa, as they rode into this largely deserted village on a tractor from a nearby community where they took refuge when government forces stormed Racak on Jan. 15.

They decided to venture home Tuesday because they heard international peace monitors were in the village. But the monitors number only about 800, fewer than half the 2,000 provided for under an October agreement that ended seven months of fighting last year.

"We heard the observers would be here today," Vjollsa said, nervously eyeing the empty street. "Otherwise, we wouldn't have come. Even when the observers were here, I was afraid the police would get me."

As her grandfather sat on the front step, Vjollsa scurried quickly through the wreckage of her home, rolling up oriental carpets and wrapping piles of clothing in blankets.

Fearing booby traps, she crept softly into each room, stepping over a once-prized jewelry box smashed into pieces on the floor. A few scattered beads were all that remained.

The television set and stereo were gone, she said, along with the meat that had been stored in a deep freezer.

Worried that police might return at any moment, she flinched at the sounds of barking dogs, a passing vehicle and the shuffle of three neighbors returning to their homes.

"This is the second time they are doing this to us," Vjollsa said. During the summer offensive, she said, police swept through the village, burning houses and sending residents fleeing into the hills.

After the October cease-fire, many returned, hoping the agreement would guarantee their safety. This time, despite bone-chilling temperatures, no one has returned except for brief periods to evacuate what is left of their homes.

Outside, Musa surveyed damage to his property: broken windows, pockmarked walls, the empty barn. Pointing to a hole above the front door, he said police fired at the wall on Jan. 15 to force women and children back into the house.

Male relatives were forced into the street, where they lay face down in the mud for seven hours before they managed to slip away, he said.

"I worked all my life for this, and now I don't have anything," Musa said, waving his cane at the three empty houses and outbuildings on his compound. "How can you leave behind a home like this?"

His granddaughter emerged from the house, jangling the keys in her hand. She closed the door behind her and stopped.

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'Men in black' directed Racak massacre Eyewitness accounts: Yugoslav regime using death squads, evidence suggests

Julius Strauss The Daily Telegraph, with files from Reuters

Compelling evidence has emerged that a special forces unit of the Serbian Interior Ministry organized the execution of dozens of the 45 civilians killed two weeks ago at the Kosova village of Racak.

Coming after reports that special forces have been involved in previous massacres, this raises the prospect that "death squads'' of highly trained soldiers are being used by the Yugoslav regime against Albanian men suspected of supporting separatist guerrillas.

The Daily Telegraph carried out extensive interviews with Serbian sources, Albanian survivors, Western diplomats in Kosova, and international monitors.

The cumulative evidence strongly suggests that, while police and local Serb civilians took part, the operation was under the control of the Specialna Antiterroristicka Jedinica (SAJ), an anti-terrorist unit operating under the interior minister.

Survivors have given matching descriptions of a small group of men, dressed in black and wearing gloves and balaclavas, who co-ordinated the attack on the village and the subsequent executions.

They match the descriptions given by witnesses of former massacres, most notably one in Prekaz last March, when more than 60 Albanians were killed in an operation Serbian sources admit was carried out by the SAJ.

One important strand of evidence linking the special forces to Racak is the testimony of a group of women and children trapped in a cellar during the fighting.

They described how a tall, broad man wearing black fatigues and a balaclava, and equipped with a two-way radio, coolly oversaw the arrest and beating of their male relatives before they were marched off to their deaths.

Another comes from a man who said he escaped as Serbian forces moved in to kill the Albanians on the hill above the village. "Some of the Serbs were in blue, some in black,'' he said.

"The men in black appeared to be in control and wore balaclavas. Some had uniforms with insignia which included a Serbian flag; some had none. They carried automatic guns and, as we were led up the hill, both units started shooting us.''

The SAJ, which falls under the public safety branch of the Interior Ministry, is thought to number about 200 men trained in counter-terrorism and special combat missions. When fighting, they usually wear black uniforms, boots, gloves, and masks. Their equipment and weaponry is Western and they are supported by helicopters and artillery units.

A Yugoslav army soldier who recently served alongside the SAJ in southern Kosova said: "These guys are something else.

"Physically huge and intimidating, they are a law unto themselves, the best we have. They are the sort of people who would be long gone before you even noticed they were there.''

The Special Operations Unit, or Jedinica za Specialne Operacije (JSO), may also have been involved in the Racak executions. Even more clandestine than the SAJ, and almost impossible for an outsider to identify, this unit falls under the intelligence branch of the Interior Ministry.

The JSO has no fixed uniforms or ranks. A Serbian military analyst said: "The SJO are not bothered with formalities. Sometimes they wear SAJ uniforms, sometimes the uniforms of the Posebne Jedinica Policije [PJP]." The PJP are special infantry units under the control of the Interior Ministry.

Proving the involvement of a special forces unit would lay the blame yet more firmly with the Yugoslav regime and Slobodan Milosevic, the Yugoslav president. It could also help The Hague war crimes tribunal to build a case against the man many consider to be the evil genius behind the Balkan wars.

In a related development, Finnish forensic experts investigating how the Racak villagers were killed said yesterday they may be unable to determine whether they were massacred or shot in battle because of the possibility of evidence-tampering.

Helena Ranta, the lead pathologist, stressed she was not accusing anyone of tampering with the bodies, but said the possibility could not be ruled out.

Louise Arbour, the Canadian chief prosecutor for the international war crimes tribunal for Yugoslavia, said last week she would take very seriously any evidence of tampering with the bodies. She said such an act could be seen as displaying "consciousness of guilt" by the perpetrator.

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Officials have banished prostitutes from a peacekeeping training school

Writes Tom Walker in Brezovica

OSCE monitors at the Hotel Narcis in Brezovica will have to find some other way to fill their spare time

Kosova monitors lose Belgrade's sexual favours THE Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe yesterday hurriedly dispatched a group of prostitutes back to Belgrade after they were discovered in a Kosova ski hotel servicing international "verifiers" supposedly monitoring the province's fragile ceasefire.

Senior officials of the OSCE in Vienna have learnt to their horror that a group of Italian ex-servicemen running the OSCE training school at the Hotel Narcis in Brezovica have turned a blind eye to ten nights of multinational high jinks.

Before they vanished yesterday morning the women involved said that they had been sent from the Serbian capital specifically to do business with Kosova's new influx of Western observers, many of whom have had distinguished military careers. British verifiers have been among those taking advantage of the hotel's seventh-floor delights and it may have been through British channels within the OSCE that the brothel racket - verifiers paid the women DM150 (£53) an hour - was rumbled.

"I overheard a senior Brit who said there was nothing he could do to stop his boys having a bit of fun on a Saturday night", said a local interpreter in Pristina, where the alarm bells at the OSCE's regional headquarters began ringing at the weekend.

"It's very worrying and serious and it must be stopped at once," Mons Nyberg, an OSCE spokesman in Vienna, said yesterday. "We must be vigilant."

For their part, the women were sad to leave. "The Italians were fun and we had a big farewell party," said 23-year-old Dragana. "We earned twice as much as we could in Belgrade, but the Germans were cold, and we never had time to really get to know the Americans.

"I don't understand why we have to go, because there are a lot of men needing female company here".

A night spent in Brezovica, a largely moribund ski resort that boasts Europe's third-longest downhill run, had duly confirmed the absurd theatre of an evening's relaxation at the cavernous Hotel Narcis, home for the next six months to rotating groups of verifiers. Providing about 200 guests daily, the OSCE contract with the hotel is worth more than $1 million (£565,000).

After dinner, a handful of Italian and American monitors sat in a coffee lounge, listening to their compatriots crashing out John Denver ballads on a guitar. Rather more earnest German observers were watching Algerian satellite television, while on the first floor the occasional training seminars on mine awareness and kidnap avoidance dragged on.

The real action, however, was to be found in a subterranean bowling alley, where a waiter winked and said he knew just what we meant when we inquired if there was a nightclub in the hotel. A few journeys in the lift revealed a brisk trade between the bowling alley and the seventh floor, where verifiers anxious not to be caught in flagrante in their own rooms could be guaranteed privacy by Dragana and her two friends.

"We'll do it in whatever room," she said in a frank interview in which she revealed signatures on her breasts, one from a waiter and one from an Italian verifier. She was uncertain how the trade had been organised, but said a man named Mario was involved.

Asked if there was any danger of any of the OSCE monitors getting into trouble for taking a girl, a waiter said: "Are you kidding? They are here just for the foreigners".

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Senator Biden: Withdraw Diplomats, Prepare for Air Strikes in Kosova

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Joseph R. Biden, Jr., ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, today called on the U.S. to take the lead in preparing a strong response--if necessary, by military means--to the current crisis in Kosova. "As NATO's leader, the U.S. must be out in front in responding to this crisis," Biden said.

"The criminal behavior of Yugoslav special police units in Kosova and Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic's defiance of NATO and the international community demand an immedicate and resolute response," Biden said. "The time has come to make Milosevic pay for his crimes."

Tensions in the region escalated Saturday after international monitors found the bodies of 45 ethnic Albanians, including three women and a 12-year-old boy, in a ditch near the town of Racak.

Ambassador William Walker, head of the international Kosova verification mission, Monday was ordered by Yugoslav authorities to leave the country within 48 hours after he openly accused Serbian special police of the civilian massacre despite Yugoslav claims that the victims were guerrillas who died in battle.

Biden advocated a prompt response. "Ambassador Walker should be instructed to leave the country immediately, as should the 750 members of the Kosova Verification Mission, to prevent the Serbs from taking them hostage, as they did with UN workers during the Bosnian war. If the Serbs attempt to prevent the observers' peaceful departure, NATO's Extraction Force, based in neighboring Macedonia, should go into action."

Biden added, "The Activation Orders for air strikes that NATO approved last October remain in force. NATO must immediately reassemble the formidable air assets it put together last fall. The alliance should initiate the necessary plans for a sustained and punishing air campaign against Serbian military targets.

We should also initiate intensive political discussions with our allies, making clear that while punishing the Serbs for their crimes, we are also not supporting the Kosova Liberation Army's demand for independence, which is at odds with U.S. policy. Finally, the United States should intensify its support for democratic forces in Serbia, to ensure a positive future for a peaceful, post-Milosevic Yugoslavia.

"The situation in Kosova is extremely complex and will require long-term Western involvement. Therefore, we must discuss with our NATO allies and other partners a plan for peace enforcement on the ground in Kosova, once the NATO bombing campaign has been brought to a successful conclusion.