[ALBSA-Info] US Soldiers Wound 2 in Kosovo Fight

[Gazhebo at aol.com]

US Soldiers Wound 2 in Kosovo Fight

By FISNIK ABRASHI

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (AP) - U.S. soldiers in Kosovo traded fire Wednesday 
with gunmen near the Macedonian border, where American troops have been 
working to contain an ethnic Albanian insurgency. The U.S. military said two 
gunmen were wounded. 

The incident occurred inside Kosovo just across the border from the 
Macedonian village of Tanusevci, where Macedonian troops and ethnic Albanian 
guerrillas clashed for two days this week. No American soldiers were injured 
in the gunbattle, the U.S. military said in a statement. 

The U.S. troops - part of a NATO-led peacekeeping contingent in Kosovo - were 
on patrol near the border village of Mijak when a group of five or six men 
pointed their weapons at them. 

When the gunmen began moving toward the soldiers, the U.S. peacekeepers 
opened fire, the military said. The men shot back before three or four of 
them retreated back across the border into Macedonia. American troops were 
trying to evacuate the wounded, the military said. 

U.S. peacekeepers, backed with armored vehicles and helicopters, have poured 
into the Kosovo border village of Debelde, just east of Mijak, this week in 
an attempt to help Macedonia prevent the conflict with the guerrillas from 
spreading. 

NATO is to decide this week whether to allow Yugoslav forces to help keep 
ethnic Albanian rebels out of Macedonia, the alliance's secretary-general 
said Tuesday. 

Lord Robertson said NATO would consider letting Yugoslav troops return to a 
narrow strip of land along the joint border of Yugoslavia, Macedonia and the 
Yugoslav province of Kosovo, which remains under NATO and U.N. control. 

Under the plan being considered, Yugoslav forces would not be allowed to 
return to Kosovo. However, Robertson said NATO-led peacekeepers were stepping 
up controls along the Kosovo-Macedonian border ``to restrict the use of 
Kosovo as a reinforcement area.'' 

The area is within a three-mile buffer zone set up in 1999 around Kosovo to 
prevent Belgrade's troops from launching surprise attacks against NATO-led 
peacekeepers who entered the province after the 78-day NATO bombing campaign, 
launched to stop then President Slobodan Milosevic's crackdown on Kosovo 
Albanians. 

Ethnic Albanian militants - who want to unite parts of Serbia and Macedonia 
where ethnic Albanians live- have used the corridor to smuggle weapons and 
fighters into southern Yugoslavia. 

The guerrillas have stepped up activity in northern Macedonia - raising fears 
of more widespread Balkan conflict. Macedonia has a restive ethnic Albanian 
community which makes up about one-fourth of its 2 million people. 

Battles on the Macedonia side of the border - within shouting distance of 
Debelde - killed three Macedonian soldiers this week. 

Macedonian security officials reported an exodus of local population fleeing 
the possible widening of clashes. 

Macedonian police spokesman, Stevo Pendarovski, said Wednesday that about 300 
ethnic Albanians, mostly women and children, fled their homes since Monday in 
villages along the border. 

``We have noticed the movement of armed groups in the border area, not only 
near Tanusevci,'' said Gjorgji Trendafilov, Macedonian defense ministry 
spokesman. He warned of ``possible new provocations in other places on the 
border.''