In the next few days Brigadier Barney White-Spunner, the British commander of the thousands of Nato troops streaming into Macedonia, will make the first move in a precarious operation which could still go badly wrong.

He will start collecting weapons which the leaders of the ethnic Albanian guerrillas say will be voluntarily handed over.

It is not a peacekeeping mission, insists Nato; its troops have not come to disarm. Nato's mandate is strictly limited: simply to collect the "credible" number of guns, mortars, and anti-tank weapons Nato has decided the guerrillas should give up.

On Nato's risky mission will depend the future of a country which not long ago was being feted as a democratic multi-ethnic country bucking the trend of Balkans conflict.

Lulled by false optimism, Lord Robertson, Nato's secretary general, did not disguise his frustration when the ethnic Albanian National Liberation Army broke on to the scene in February this year.

With his predecessor, Javier Solana, now the EU's security supremo, he dismissed them as "terrorists". The language changed when Nato governments, notably the US, belatedly appreciated that the NLA had the support - funds donated by a world-wide diaspora - and the arms to provoke a civil war in Macedonia, drawing in Greece, Turkey, and Bulgaria.

Western intelligence officials now say the NLA had been preparing for five years for incursions into northern Macedonia, following a classic strategy that had been pursued by other rebel groups, notably the Kosovo Liberation Army.

First they set up a covert military organisation. Then they launched guerrilla attacks to provoke a heavy-handed response from the security forces. This radicalised the local Albanians, enabling them to build up a political platform with a list of demands. Deploying a dual-track negotiating stance - military and political - they finally insisted on an international intervention.

It appears to have worked to plan. It was helped by Nato governments, and the US in particular, turning a blind eye to the smuggling of weapons from Kosovo and Albania.

Western governments were also compromised by the support they gave to the KLA before and during the 1999 Kosovo war. The KLA leadership, which included ethnic Albanian Macedonians and is now prominent in the Kosovo protection corps, a notionally civil force in the Serbian province, actively supported the NLA .

Both the KLA and the NLA have been armed since the early 1990s by the Albanian government, whose leaders now say they will apply pres sure on ethnic Albanians to honour the deal.

However, there are an estimated 600,000 weapons on Albania's black market, and there are reports that the NLA and smaller extremist groups have taken weapons across the Albanian border.

Meanwhile this limited operation, of a kind the UN might have been expected to conduct, could not, it seems, be set up without the British. It will provide 1,900 lightly armed troops, about half the 4,000 or so Nato is sending.

The German government's offer of 500 troops still depends on a parliamentary vote on Wednesday. And though the US helped to broker the deal, for the first time in Nato's history there will no US troops on the frontline.

Many observers, including General Wesley Clark, allied commander during the Kosovo war, say Nato should have gone in earlier, with a broader mandate and no deadline. Nato commanders say it is all a matter of establishing trust between the rebels and the Macedonian leaders.

Perhaps the offer of financial aid from the US and the EU will help. The proof will be when Nato's mandate reaches its 30-day deadline.

"If Nato stays for less than five years its mission will fail and Macedonia will face the same fate as Bosnia," commander Mususi, an NLA leader near the Kosovo border, was quoted as saying yesterday.

If the situation deteriorates, a British defence source euphemistically said, then "choices will have to be made".

The sound of sniper fire crackled in the background as two British army jeeps nosed their way into the village of Poroj. The gunfire was not far away – but then neither was the front line.

A few minutes after they passed through, a man was brought into the village, his face contorted with pain. He had been wounded in the sniper fire, and was hurried into the basement of a non-descript house that serves as the Albanian rebels' field hospital.

This is what awaits British troops in Macedonia. They have not come as peace-keepers, they are here only to collect weapons voluntarily surrendered by the Albanian rebel National Liberation Army (NLA). But they will find themselves in a dangerous, potentially hostile environment. The front lines are still drawn up, and the Western-brokered ceasefire is ignored almost daily – or rather nightly. The nights are when the real shooting starts.

A mile or so up the road from Poroj, the village of Neprosteno lies in ruins. What is left of the buildings was smouldering again yesterday after Neprosteno came under fire for two hours overnight.

The British soldiers were looking for the rebels in Poroj, but there were none in sight. Only a couple of days ago, the village was awash with them, and the tea garden off the main square was full of men in uniform cradling Kalashnikovs in their laps. One local said: "There are no fighters in Poroj. We have a ceasefire now." The sound of gunfire had echoed only a few minutes before.

Not until some time after the jeeps had moved on did the truth begin to dawn: the civilians milling around town were the same men who had been in uniform only days before. The order had apparently come down from Sipkovica, the rebels' base high in the mountains over the main Albanian city of Tetovo, for the rebels to come out of uniform. It was yet another piece of spin-doctoring from the rebels who have proved themselves the masters of PR. The smart uniforms were gone, the rebels were prepared to return to civilian life. One old man had kept his camouflage jacket draped over his civilian clothes.

But then the whole exercise of weapons collection is the politics of gesture. No one in Nato believes the rebels will give up all their weapons, not with the risk that the Macedonians will renege on the peace deal and attack them. Ljube Boskovski, the Macedonian Interior Minister, has openly said he wants to go ahead with prosecuting Ali Ahmeti, the rebel political leader, for war crimes.

New shipments of weapons are already on their way to the rebels from Kosovo, according to Nato intelligence. And they are probably busy burying caches in Macedonia.

But what Nato is waiting to see is whether both sides will go along with the gesture, and if the rebels will give up their guns as easily as their uniforms. The alliance said yesterday it had agreed the number of weapons to collect with the rebels – but it was keeping the final number a secret. The rebels have claimed they have only 2,000 weapons, while the Macedonian government has accused them of harbouring as many as 85,000. The truth is thought to lie somewhere between.

With the infringements of the ceasefire, and a series of incidents timed to coincide with developments in the peace process, there are clearly some in Macedonia who do not want the peace deal to succeed – possibly on both sides. The public line from the rebels remains that they are completely behind the Nato weapons collections, and will give up all they have. The NLA public relations machine is well oiled, and hardened commanders toe the line.

But in Poroj yesterday not everyone was happy. "We have many problems," said one NLA man who would not give his name. "If we give up our arms to Nato, what will happen to the Macedonian soldiers and police?" The Macedonian side has made no commitment to disarm. Recent reports suggest it too has new shipments on the way.

"Under whose control will they be?" asked the young NLA man. "Who will guarantee this peace deal?" His words underline growing suspicions that Nato will be dragged into more than collecting guns in a strictly limited 30-day operation.

The words "mission creep" are on everybody's lips. Yesterday, it seemed the number of soldiers in Operation Essential Harvest would be about 4,700, not 3,500 as the alliance said before. About 2,000 will be British. The 30-day limit will begin only once collections have begun. Nato commanders suggest that could be as soon as Monday.

The NLA's campaign has been a long time in the making, and some of its members seem reluctant to end it now. "This peace deal is only half the solution," one man complained of the peace deal signed under Western pressure, which makes some concessions to the Albanian minority – but not enough for everyone in Poroj.

Mr Ahmeti, the rebels' political leader, is desperately trying to present the NLA as behind the deal. One of the men in Poroj snorts: "Ali Ahmeti is happy because he's in his office. He should come and see what it's like in Neprosteno."

NATO AND the Macedonian government have reached an agreement about the number of weapons ethnic Albanian rebels will hand over to the 3,500 troops pouring into Macedonia on NATO’s Operation Essential Harvest.

NATO and Macedonian government sources say around 3,000 weapons will be handed in by the self-styled National Liberation Army, although NATO’s senior commander in Macedonia, Denmark’s General Gunnar Lange, refused to confirm any figures.

NATO troops will start collecting weapons next week from rebels at points near the towns of Tetovo, Kumanovo and Debar, and estimate that by next weekend up to a third of weapons could have been collected.

The fragile ceasefire between Macedonian government forces and Albanian rebels was broken again on Thursday night as an hour of mortar and machine-gun fire rang out between the villages of Neprosteno and Ratae, outside the western town of Tetovo.

Five British paratroopers from 16 Air Assault Brigade’s elite Pathfinder Platoon dug in at observation posts at a German NATO base at Zelino, outside Tetovo, reported an hour of "fairly heavy and sustained fire" between the rival forces .

The paras said a heavy night-time mist at the bottom of the Sar Planina mountains had made it impossible to ascertain how much of the fire was incoming or outgoing from Macedonian positions.

British paratroopers driving in open Land Rovers have also been assigned with patrolling the main E65 dual-carriageway between Tetovo and Skopje, to prevent rebels from laying mines.

The delicate issues of how many weapons the rebels have, how many will be collected by NATO and how many must be handed in before the government is happy that the NLA is no longer a threat illuminates much of the thinking behind NATO’s mission in Macedonia.

The rebels started off this month by claiming they had some 2,000 weapons, which Gen Lange said were "starting figures and not really credible estimates".

The Macedonian interior ministry, headed by the extreme nationalist Ljube Boshkovski, has said the NLA had 87,000 weapons, a claim he refused to clarify.

More rational elements in the Macedonian ministry of defence weighed in on Wednesday with a figure of 65,000, but confused the issue by saying that figure included each individual rocket, mine and grenade the rebels might possess.

Working on the idea of one rebel, one weapon, the total of NLA firearms would probably number some 3,000, about the number of rebels fighting a six-month insurgency campaign against Macedonian government forces in a struggle for equal rights.

Yet reporters and international monitors who have visited NLA strongholds since January this year say many rebel fighters possess more than one automatic rifle.

Furthermore the organisation has visible stocks of hundreds of anti-tank rocket launchers, 40mm grenade launchers, mortars, light and heavy machine-guns, as well as SA-7 and SA-16 ground-to-air missiles.

NATO intelligence sources in Kosovo and Macedonia have long estimated that they intercept between 10-20 per cent of weapons being taken from Kosovo to Macedonia since January this year.

NATO knows it can terminate Operation Essential Harvest only after a respectable number of weapons have been given in, and Macedonian ministries know they must give the sensitive Macedonian electorate - many of them outraged at NATO’s entry into the country - reason to think the rebels are being disarmed.

Negotiations between the NLA and NATO circulate around political expediency as much as around disarmament, and one senior NATO official says it is important not to put the NLA under too much pressure to hand in too many weapons as that would force it to increase smuggling efforts.

NATO’s KFOR mission in Kosovo has deployed more than 2,000 troops to patrol the border inside Kosovo, and rebel fighters have been intercepted moving weapons back to Kosovo from Macedonia.

DIMITAR SERAFIMOVSKI is a proud Macedonian farmer, but when his cow was ready to calve yesterday he did what his family have done for generations and fetched an ethnic Albanian neighbour.

Sitting low on a stool in the dark shed Sami Ganiu, wearing a traditional Albanian skullcap, leant close to the cow's head and whispered an ancient Islamic incantation into her ear. "It's not a problem that I'm a Christian and he's a Muslim," Mr Serafimovski said. "I don't understand the words, but the prayer will stop my cow getting the evil eye."

The ritual complete, Dimitar lifted Sami Ganiu on to a shabby red tractor and they drove together through the dusty village as women beat seeds from sunflowers with wooden sticks. For the tiny frontline village of Romanovce, Macedonia's western-backed peace plan and the deployment of Nato soldiers has come just in time. Although the village has been shared by Macedonians and Albanians for centuries, tensions had begun to gnaw at its social fabric.

On three sides fighting had erupted between ethnic Albanian guerrillas and the Macedonian police and army. When the conflict began six months ago, both ethnic communities were confident that war would never come to them. The village appeared to epitomise the multi-ethnic Yugoslav ideal.

In the centre a Church with peeling red and white paint serves the spiritual needs of Orthodox Macedonians. Barely a hundred yards away is a mosque with a rusty roof. "We have lived together for more than 300 years and will not be divided," said Pero, 64, a Macedonian shopkeeper. "We looked after and protected each other during two world wars."

When the shooting and shelling came to the edge of the village, Albanians and Macedonians called a meeting in the village school and swore to protect each other. "But the trouble around us got worse," said Ramiz, 36, an unemployed ethnic Albanian.

Tension rose when police began recruiting local Macedonians to fight as reservists against Albanians in villages nearby. Then refugees fleeing the fighting began arriving in Romanovce, bringing with them the bitterness of their experiences. "They reminded us that in this country the Macedonians have all the jobs," said Izair, 36.

Albanian and Macedonian children were still together in the school playground, but Macedonians played football at one end, Albanians basketball at the other. Nationalist graffiti appeared on the school wall. But with a shaky ceasefire in place, tensions are subsiding in Romanovce.

Marjan, 36, a Macedonian villager, said: "What is happening is all the fault of the politicians. We don't want war and neither do the Albanians here. This is the tragedy of the Balkans."

SLOBODAN MILOSEVIC, the former President of Yugoslavia now on war crimes charges, was rebuked by prison authorities yesterday after he succeeded in giving a live television interview from detention in The Hague.

Using a telephone outside his cell he called an American network to berate the international community, protest his innocence and defiantly suggest that he was being treated like a slave.

His jailers at the International War Crimes Tribunal gave Milosevic a warning that his privileges would be withdrawn if he tried to repeat his antics, which also included a telephone call to sympathetic members of the communist party in Russia.

An inquiry was underway to find out how he had managed to make the calls without supervision. Jim Landale, a tribunal spokesman, said Milosevic could have privileges restricted or withdrawn if he repeated the offence. "He has been warned, and he said he will comply and it will not happen again," he said.

He has been held on war crimes charges since June 29, when the government in Belgrade handed him over to the tribunal in a secret deal. In his interview with Fox News in America, Milosevic said that he was innocent of all charges of ordering the deaths of civilians and ethnic cleansing, offering a tempered regret for the killings committed by his troops.

"All of us are sorry for the death of any, any person. There is no question that anybody is happy for the death of any person anywhere," Milosevic said. "I'm proud for everything I did in defending my country and my people. All my decisions are legitimate and legal, based on the constitution of Yugoslavia and based on the rights to self-defence, which belongs to every nation in the world."

He said he never ordered his troops to kill civilians, merely to "eliminate terrorist groups" and while he admitted that some murders had taken place, he said the killers had been punished. He said the decision of the government of Vojislav Kostunica to hand him over to the tribunal in exchange for American financial aid gave him the status of a slave.

"They could trade me for money, I got nothing for that. And I believe that selling of people is something that happened in the long past, not in 21st century."

MACEDONIAN Slav extremists may try to undermine the rebel disarmament operation due to begin on Monday. They are angered by the relatively low number of weapons to be handed over, Western defence sources said yesterday.

The total was agreed between the British commander of the Nato mission and the leader of the Albanian National Liberation Army. Brigadier Barney White-Spunner, commander of 16 Air Assault Brigade, and Ali Ahmeti, the NLA leader, met for three hours at Kumanovo in the northeast of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia on Thursday. They completed the technical details of the handover programme.

The agreed inventory of arms — about 3,500 Kalashnikovs, heavy machineguns, mortars, rocket-propelled grenades, two tanks, two armoured personnel carriers and other weapons — was presented yesterday to President Trajkovski for his approval.There was, however, increasing concern that Slav extremists who organised violent demonstrations in Skopje a month ago would be angered by the agreed total.

The Ministry of Interior, headed by Ljube Boshkovski, who is perceived to be the most extreme Slav member of the Macedonian Government, allegedly has been saying that the NLA has 85,000 weapons. This number was rejected yesterday by Major-General Gunnar Lange, the Danish commander of all Nato troops in Macedonia.

He surprised the Macedonian media when he said at a press conference: "The mission we have is to collect the weapons that are handed over voluntarily by the insurgents, so the number they have declared they are willing to hand over is the number we’re going to collect."

The Western defence sources said that the important issue was not numbers but the fact that the NLA was giving up a significant capability.

The two T55 tanks in the hands of the NLA are to be destroyed where they are, rather than taken out of the country for destruction. Royal Engineer explosives ordnance disposal teams will be given that task. Some of the ammunition, such as rocket-propelled grenades, will also be destroyed "in theatre".

The sources said that the concern about Slav extremists centred on three issues: the likely dispute over the size of the NLA’s weapons stockpile; the continuing blockade of the main border crossing between Kosovo and Macedonia at Blace, which is causing serious logistic problems for Nato; and the threat by some Macedonian Slav politicians to force a referendum on the peace settlement. It is feared that a referendum would delay the whole arms collection programme and ruin Nato’s plan to start withdrawing its troops, now expected to rise to 3,800, by the end of next month.

The sources said: "The first phase of the arms collection is expected to go ahead as planned, but what about the next stages — will the extremists try to scupper the whole process?" The Nato supply route continued to be blocked at Blace yesterday by lorries, piles of earth, barbed wire and dozens of Macedonian women and children, who are taken there by bus each day to protest against what is perceived to be the alliance’s connivance with the Albanian "terrorists".

As a result British commanders were trying to decide last night how to bring eight Scimitar armoured reconnaissance vehicles from Kosovo to Macedonia to join the arms-collection mission. The transfer is expected to begin today.

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia, Aug 24 (AFP) - The UN mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) on Friday adopted a rule on the sale of properties aimed at protecting minority ethnic communities in the province, often victims of pressure by majority ethnic Albanians to sell their goods and leave the region.

UNMIK chief Hans Haekkerup "has signed a regulation which aims to help stem the flow of minorities from mixed communities in Kosovo and to protect the rights of all who wish to live here," a statement said.

The rule foresees that contracts between buyers and sellers in zones designated as sensitive by UNMIK would be examined by the administrator of the province, with a view to avoiding forced departures.

A transaction would be refused if it "is carried out by an organization or structure with the aim to systematically buy minority-owned properties in order to change the ethnic balance within the designated area," the regulation said.

Other reasons for refusal would be if "the transaction was carried out under duress," if "the sale price of the property in question is unrealistic," or if "the transaction is deemed to affect the security situation in a designated area in a way that would harm other minority property owners in that area."

Since June 1999, when Belgrade troops withdrew from the province following a 78-day NATO bombing campaign of Yugoslavia, international aid agencies have estimated that about 200,000 Serbs and other non-Albanians have fled Kosovo.

Those who remained in Kosovo -- estimated at between 80,000 and 100,000 -- live in NATO-guarded enclaves in the province, and are often exposed to attacks by ethnic Albanian extremists, with peacekeepers coming under frequent criticism for failing to prevent the ethnic violence.

The overwhelmingly ethnic Albanian population in Kosovo wants to see the troubled province gain independence from Yugoslavia

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia, Aug 24 (AFP) - A member of the Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC) was killed by unknown attackers late Thursday in the western town of Djakovica, Andrea Angeli, the spokesman of the United Nations mission in the province, told AFP Friday.

Sefir Sefiri, 30, was found dead by NATO-led peacekeepers (KFOR) who had patrolled the area and Angeli said the UN police had launched a investigation into the incident.

The soldiers heard the shooting, saw a vehicle fleeing the scene, and later found Sefiri's body, the KFOR statement said.

Another UN official told AFP that the murder "was probably settling of accounts linked to organised crime."

The KPC was set up by NATO and the United Nations in 1999 to provide employment for former guerrillas of the officially disbanded Kosovo Liberation Army.

The unit -- which receives funding, training and equipment from Western countries -- was supposed to be an unarmed civil defence militia but its members have frequently been implicated in criminal activity inside and outside the province.

KPC leaders make no secret of their ambition to one day form the basis for the army of an independent Kosovo but have denied involvement in the uprising in Macedonia.

PODGORICA, Yugoslavia, Aug 24 (AFP) - One man was killed and another injured on Friday in an attack by unknown gunmen near the border between the Yugoslav republic of Montenegro and UN-administrated Kosovo, police said.

Three masked attackers -- one of them dressed in combat uniform -- believed to have come from neighbouring Kosovo into Montenegro, were armed with two automatic rifles and another gun, police said.

Speaking in Albanian, the attackers ordered the men to hand over their valuables, but when one of them tried to escape, the gunmen opened fire, killing one and injuring the other, police said.

Montenegrin police have launched an investigation with the Yugoslav army and have asked for assistance from the UN mission that has been administrating Kosovo since June 1999.

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia, Aug 24 (AFP) - Eight people, suspected of being members of ethnic Albanian guerrillas operating in Macedonia, were arrested overnight for illegally crossing the border into Kosovo, NATO-led peacekeepers said Friday.

"Eight men were detained yesterday evening at Mucjai Mahala after illegally crossing" the border between Macedonia and the UN-administrated Yugoslav province of Kosovo, KFOR spokesman Howard Rhoades said.

He said the men, who "were found in possession of communications equipment, UCK (National Liberation army, NLA) badges and patches," had been arrested and transported to the US KFOR base Camp Bondsteel "for further questioning."

Macedonia has repeatedly called on KFOR to step up its efforts to seal the border between Macedonia and Kosovo to prevent guerrillas from slipping across to help the seven-month insurgency in the troubled Balkan state.

Since June, KFOR has said its troops have detained over 484 people, seizing more than 600 rifles, 1,058 anti-tank weapons, 113 rockets and missiles, 1,396 mines and grenades as well as 132,606 rounds of ammunition.

KFOR troops regularly stop donkey convoys and arrest suspected guerrillas in the mountains separating Macedonia and the mainly Albanian-populated Serbian province, but most of those detained are released within a few days.

SKOPJE, Aug 25 (AFP) - NATO negotiators hope to persuade the Macedonian government on Saturday that an undertaking by ethnic Albanian rebel fighters to hand over 3,000 weapons represents a credible move towards disarmament.

As NATO troops continue to fly in to oversee the weapons hand over, NATO and Macedonian officials were set to continue talks on the number of arms the alliance should collect from the rebels, the alliance's special envoy Pieter Feith said after initial discussions Friday.

NATO has promised the government that it will collect one third of the rebels' weapons by August 31, when Macedonia's parliament meets to debate constitutional changes agreed in a Western-mediated peace deal between Macedonian Slav and ethnic Albanian political leaders.

Feith and NATO General Gunnar Lange met Friday with Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski and other government representatives to inform them that the alliance intended to collect just over 3,000 weapons -- well below earlier Macedonian estimates of the rebels' arsenal.

"We had a very fruitful discussion about figures and weapons. There will be more talks this evening and tomorrow and we will come to an agreed figure," Feith said after the talks.

NATO set at just over 3,000 the number of weapons its troops will collect from the rebels over the next month under a peace accord in Macedonia, Western military sources said.

A diplomatic source in Skopje put the number at 3,300.

But either figure is well below Skopje's expectations and Macedonian defence ministry spokesman Marjan Gjurovski suggested the government had rejected NATO's offer.

On Thursday, the Macedonian government had said it believed the rebel National Liberation Army (NLA) was holding at least 60,000 various weapons, but NATO officials insisted this figure was exaggerated.

"We do not comment on the differences of numbers because we are bringing our estimations closer together about the definite number of weapons that we should collect," Gjurovski said.

Feith however said that Trajkovski "once again gave us his unqualified support for the mission that NATO is going to undertake," refusing to give any details on arms numbers.

With NATO troops due to begin collecting the weapons at points around northwest Macedonia as of Monday and with a 30-day deadline for completing the operation, officials at alliance headquarters in Brussels said the number of troops involved would climb from the planned 3,500 to 4,500-5,000.

General Gunnar Lange, who is commanding operation "Essential Harvest", announced Friday that NATO officials and the rebels had reached agreement on the number of arms to be collected.

"The numbers are credible now and close to our own assessment," he said, withholding the figures until they were presented to the government.

Lange said on Friday that NATO was accepting the NLA's estimate of its arms figures.

The number of weapons "they have declared they will hand over is the number I am going to collect," he said, indicating the Macedonian government was prepared to go along with the figure.

On Friday, more than 700 soldiers from five nations were due to join the mission, which so far tallies some 1,280 military personnel.

More than 350 troops were flying in from Britain, which will lead the operation with around half of the number of troops taking part.

Meanwhile on Macedonia's border with the UN-administered Yugoslav province of Kosovo, the rebel NLA has continued to hamper the operation by moving weapons in and out of Macedonia, NATO officials said.

NATO spokesman Major Barry Johnson said arms were still being seized by the alliance-led force in Kosovo, KFOR, and that NATO had reinforced troop numbers to try to secure the border.

KFOR said Friday its troops had arrested eight suspected rebels near the border overnight.

Meanwhile, Macedonian officials said rebels fired on Skopje security forces in areas in and around the volatile northwest town of Tetovo, but the report was not independently confirmed.

One of the keys to the success of the mission, which is a vital part of a peace process aimed at ending more than six months of conflict, is that the shaky ceasefire holds.

Lange said NATO teams were monitoring the truce and that the NLA was beginning to comply with it.

He said the Macedonian army was to have begun withdrawing heavy weapons from the area on Friday and start returning to barracks, decreasing the likelihood of ceasefire violations.

BELGRADE, Aug 24 (AFP) - Serbian Interior Minister Dusan Mihajlovic has offered a 300,000-German-mark (151,750 euro) reward for any evidence leading to suspects or those behind the unsolved murders of 21 people, including a former defense minister, the statement on the ministry web site said Friday.

A reward "is offered to anyone who gives evidence on executors or those who ordered" the murders or have been involved in the disappearance of former Serbian communist party president Ivan Stambolic, a foe of ex-strongman Slobodan Milosevic, missing since last August, the statement at www.mup.sr.gov.yu said.

The offer came amid political turmoil in the country that has erupted as Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica and his Democratic party of Serbia (DSS) said it would withdraw its representatives from the government here, amid controversy over alleged links between politicians and organised crime.

Kostunica himself accused Mihajlovic and his office on Friday of "either being incompetent" to solve a number of murders, kidnappings and other crimes "or being connected in some ways with the organised crime."

The latest crisis followed the August 3 murder of a former secret service agent Momir Gavrilovic, one of many gang-style killings here in the past decade, which did not attract much attention until press reports showed the victim had met with advisers from Kostunica's office on the day of his death.

The reward poster with photos of victims, including Gavrilovic, also said that Mihajlovic "guarantees secrecy of data and protection of people" offering information, who could also contact the minister by phone.

It also showed photos of former Serbian deputy interior minister Radovan Stojicic, killed in April 1997, former Yugoslav defence minister Pavle Bulatovic, murdered in February 2000 and prominent journalist Slavko Curuvija, shot dead by unknown gunmen during 1999 NATO air campaign against Belgrade.

The others on the list include some victims who, according to press reports, had been killed as a part of a settling of accounts among various shadowy groups.

BELGRADE, Aug June 24 (AFP) - Yugoslav banks will begin converting foreign currencies, mainly German marks, into euros on January 1, Beta news agency quoted the central bank governor Mladjan Dinkic as saying on Friday.

"The Yugoslav Central bank will have the equivalent 500 million German marks (255.6 million euros, 233 million dollars) in euros to begin the conversion," Dinkic said.

Euro banknotes and coins will become legal tender throughout the 12-nation euro zone at midnight on December 31.

Dinkic said that the amount would be provided from December 1 through an accord with a foreign commercial bank, which he did not identify.

Yugoslav citizens will have three alternatives for converting currencies.

They may directly change foreign-currency savings accounts into euros at no charge, and this will be done automatically by banks if clients with euro-zone currencies do not indicate another preference.

A second possibility will be to change currencies into euros at a bank other than one's own, after paying an unspecified commission.

The third alternative will be to change funds into US dollars or Swiss francs, but commissions will be higher in these cases, Dinkic said.

The single European currency will also replace the mark as the official currency in the UN-run Serbian province of Kosovo, and in the Yugoslav republic of Montenegro, which has been using the mark as its reference currency since November 1999.

Neither Serbia nor Montenegro, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia's two constituents, will be members of the euro zone, however.

Yugoslavia survived hyperinflation during the decade-long rule of former president Slobodan Milosevic, when foreign-currency savings accounts estimated to total about four billion dollars (4.38 billion euros) in state-run banks were frozen, and the money used to fund his armed forces.

Milosevic's regime managed to pay back only around 14.5 million dollars to those investors before it was ousted in October 2000.

The country's new authorities have promised to make partial payments every three months.

But many people in Serbia, lacking faith in the banks, keep their savings in marks, "stashed under the mattress," experts said.

They estimate that about five billion marks have been hoarded in cash.

The German currency, which can only be issued by the Bundesbank, appeared en masse in Yugoslavia in the early 1990s and entered into general circulation in 1993 owing to rampant inflation that destroyed the value of the Yugoslav dinar.

In December 2000, the Yugoslav government devalued the dinar to 30 dinars for one mark (0.51 euros, 0.46 dollars), bringing the exchange rate into line with levels offered on the black market.

Since then, the rate has remained stable, and the central bank has opened a number of exchange offices to compete with the black market, while also promoting a return to saving accounts.

Dinkic said on Friday that Yugoslav citizens "have begun to save in banks," adding that in July, the total amount kept in savings accounts came to about 18 million marks.

He said that the central bank's gold and foreign exchange reserves stood at 960 million dollars in August, compared to 400 million dollars last December.

Once banknotes are introduced, the euro will become the currency of record for the Yugoslav central bank's reserves.

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia - The Yugoslav president Friday urged Serbs who have fled Kosovo to register for the elections set to be held later this year in the NATO-controlled province.

Vojislav Kostunica appealed to the estimated 200,000 displaced Serbs to add their names to lists of voters being compiled by the Western-led Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. The group is preparing for what is hoped to be multiethnic elections in the province.

``I urge all the people ... who were forced by violence to leave Kosovo, to register for the elections,'' Kostunica said, but stressed that he was not suggesting the displaced had to vote in the elections, planned for Nov. 17.

Serbs needed to register to prevent manipulation of the ethnic makeup of the province before the 1998-1999 war, Kostunica said, contesting ''false estimates'' that Serbs accounted for less than 10 percent of Kosovo's prewar population.

Kosovo Albanians' armed struggle to secede from Serbia, the main Yugoslav republic, was met by a crackdown on them by the country's then-president, Slobodan Milosevic. NATO responded with air strikes, eventually forcing the Belgrade government to give up control over Kosovo, now run by United Nations and NATO.

Ensuing revenge attacks by Kosovo Albanians resulted in the mass exodus of Serbs and other non-Albanians from Kosovo. Ethnic hatred and violence still prevents Serbs from returning or influencing a future Kosovo parliament or government.

Kostunica said that the displaced should ``take part in elections only if they can really return to live in Kosovo, with necessary security guarantees.''

``Taking part in elections depends on free will of voters, and free will can hardly be expressed when there is a lack of freedom,'' he said, referring to the continuing hostilities in the province.

PODGORICA, Yugoslavia - Albanian-speaking gunmen attacked Montenegro wood cutters Friday, killing one and injuring another, police said.

Police in Montenegro, Yugoslavia's smaller republic, said masked men speaking Albanian approached several locals working in a field and tried to rob them. The attackers shot dead one worker and injured another, police said.

The shooting took place near the town of Plav, located in Montenegro only a few kilometers (miles) from the boundary separating that republic from the ethnic-Albanian populated Kosovo province.

The assailants, one of whom wore a camouflage uniform, ``probably came from Kosovo,'' the police statement said.

Montenegro forms the Yugoslav federation together with the much larger republic Serbia.

Kosovo Albanians' armed struggle to secede from Serbia was met by a crackdown on them by the country's then-president, Slobodan Milosevic. NATO responded with air strikes, eventually forcing the Belgrade government to give up control over Kosovo, now run by the United Nations and NATO.

Montenegro, which also has a sizable community of ethnic Albankcns among its 600,000 people, has so far avoided such ethnic violence.

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia - Peacekeepers detained eight ethnic Albanians suspected to be rebels after they allegedly illegally entered Kosovo, a spokesman for the peacekeepers said Friday.

The suspects, arrested Thursday evening near the Macedonian border, were carrying communications enquipment and badges with the insignia of Macedonia's ethnic Albanian rebel group, said Howard Rhoades, spokesman for the NATO-led peacekeepers.

The eight were brought to Camp Bondsteel, the main U.S. base in Kosovo, for further questioning.

Kosovo is widely believed to be a main supply route for Macedonia's ethnic Albanian rebels, the National Liberation Army. The militants took up arms in February, saying they want more rights for their community, which accounts for up to a third of the country's population of 2 million.

NATO-led peacekeepers in Kosovo have watched the border carefully and arrested several suspected rebels in an attempt to demonstrate that Kosovo cannot serve as a safe haven for Macedonia's rebels.

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia -A dispute within Yugoslavia's new leadership worsened Friday as President Vojislav Kostunica accused Serbia's government of incompetence and failure to tackle rising crime and corruption.

The criticism reflected growing tensions between Kostunica and Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, the key architects of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's ouster less than a year ago.

Kostunica's comments came just days after his Democratic Party of Serbia pulled out of the government of Serbia, Yugoslavia's larger republic, triggering the worst political crisis since Milosevic was removed from power in October.

At a news conference Friday, Kostunica's criticism was mostly directed at Djindjic's government, which he accused of being responsible for the ``high level of crime in the society,'' through alleged inability to combat lawlessness.

``For countless unsolved murder cases, for abductions, smuggling, for slowness and lack of reforms ... for a fall in the living standard, for a looming energy crisis, we must find who is responsible,'' he said.

Kostunica particularly insisted on an ``urgent'' investigation of the murder of a state security officer who was gunned down shortly after visiting the president's office earlier this month. Kostunica said the officer had offered to expose certain crime bosses and corrupt policemen.

Kostunica's and Djindjic's disagreements include diverging views of Milosevic's extradition to the U.N. war crimes tribunal. Both agreed Milosevic was guilty of ruinous rule, but Kostunica insisted the June extradition to the Netherlands-based court was unconstitutional. Djindjic argued it was justified because the extradition opened the way for Western financial assistance.

The rift within the new leadership is likely to slow reforms in the country, which faces enormous economic problems following years of misrule by Milosevic.

It also could delay promised international investment if it results in the government's fall and early elections. Milosevic's Socialists, as well as its neo-communist and ultranationalist allies, might profit from the dispute in case of a new vote.

Djindjic has rejected Kostunica's accusations, including allegations he has personal ties with those implicated in cigarette smuggling and other illegal activities.

Kostunica accused, among others, Serbia's Interior Minister Dusan Mihajlovic, of being ``either unwilling or incompetent'' to crack down on crime.

After Kostunica's made his comments, Mihajlovic announced a 300,000 German marks (dlrs 140,000) reward fund to boost efforts to solve 22 unresolved murders and abductions of in the past several years of prominent politicians, business and underworld leaders.

The Serbian government's justice minister, Vladan Batic, called Kostunica's allegations ``completely arbitrary and malicious,'' and said they aimed to destabilize the government in revenge for its extradition of Milosevic.

Batic also accused Kostunica of trying to protect some key figures of Milosevic's regime who are now being investigated or detained for misdeeds in the past.

On Thursday, Kostunica also called for a resolution of the dispute between Serbia and tiny Montenegro, led by a government that wants to break away from Yugoslavia,

``We must resolve the situation, one way or another,'' Kostunica told reporters. ``We can't make the necessary changes in Serbia's constitution until it's clear whether Serbia will be an independent state or remain part of the (Yugoslav) federation with Montenegro

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia - A year after the abduction of one of Slobodan Milosevic's leading critics, police acknowledge their investigations are at a standstill and his family fears he is dead.

The Aug. 25 snatching of Ivan Stambolic just a month before last year's elections that ultimately led to Milosevic's ouster tops the list of unresolved disappearances under the former president.

With police admitting that they have no leads, the Stambolic family is losing hope that the former Serbian president who was purged by Milosevic will ever be found. His wife, Katarina, recently said she doubts that her husband could still be alive.

A witness saw Stambolic grabbed and trundled into a white van a year ago while on a morning run. The scene of the crime a jogging path in a lush Belgrade suburb now is unused, avoided by others.

``Stambolic's disappearance is our hardest case; the investigation is practically at a standstill,'' said police Gen. Goran Petrovic, head of Yugoslavia's state security. ``All that is known is that some guys took him away in a van and nothing else.''

The Stambolic family lawyer, Nikola Barovic, said part of the reason investigations have not been more fruitful is due to obstruction by public servants who served under Milosevic. These people fear that too much digging in the past could reflect badly on their own records, he said.

The new government is also at fault, Barovic said, suggesting it lacks the direction and sense of purpose needed to deal with past wrongs.

``Just look at the time it took them to deliver Milosevic to The Hague war crimes tribunal or to uncover mass graves across Serbia,'' said Barovic, referring to Milosevic's handover to the U.N. court two months ago and recent discoveries of buried corpses of hundreds of Kosovo Albanians allegedly executed by Milosevic's squads.

But on Friday, Interior Minister Dusan Mihajlovic offered $140,000 to anybody providing information that would help find Stambolic or solve any of 21 other, high-profile cases of murder or abduction of prominent politicians, journalists, policemen, business and underworld figures.

Stambolic's association with Milosevic dates back to the 1960s when the two started climbing the rungs of power in the Communist Party, which ruled Yugoslavia until the country started falling apart in 1991.

By 1980, Stambolic was president of Serbia, the country's largest republic and Milosevic's mentor. Then, in 1987, Milosevic staged a coup, purging Stambolic and replacing him both as Serbian president and head of the republic's Communist Party.

Stambolic over time became one of Milosevic's most prominent critics. In a 1991 open letter, he predicted that the nationalistic policies of his erstwhile protege in Kosovo and elsewhere would destroy Yugoslavia and plunge Serbia into isolation.

``You are creating an apartheid out of Kosovo and a ruin out of Yugoslavia,'' Stambolic wrote. ``Serbia will be left abandoned by all, in torment.''

Friends of the missing former Serbian president formed the Committee for Freeing Stambolic and have published a book on his disappearance. The group regularly updates its Web site with reports about the case.

The group adamantly believes that Stambolic's abduction was politically motivated and tied to Milosevic. Some go as far as to say that Milosevic weakened in his last months of power ordered him killed as a threat to his authority.

Barovic says that Milosevic and his allies feared Stambolic for the ``sheer authority his personality possessed'' and his staunch refusal to condone wrongdoing.

Aleksandar Nenadovic, of the Stambolic support group, urged the new authorities to ``unravel the vestiges of evil ... for the sake of tomorrow's democracy.''

``Our hope that Ivan is alive is slowly melting away, but we know we must not keep silent,'' Nenadovic said. ``This country cannot live with a political crime such as this one unresolved.''

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia - President Vojislav Kostunica accused Serbia's government on Friday of incompetence and failure to tackle rising crime and corruption, as a dispute within Yugoslavia's new leadership worsened.

The criticism reflected growing tensions between the key architects of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's ouster last year.

Kostunica's comments came just days after his Democratic Party of Serbia pulled out of the government of Serbia, Yugoslavia's larger republic, triggering the Balkan nation's worst political crisis since Milosevic was removed from power in October.

At a news conference Friday, Kostunica's criticism was directed mainly at the government of Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, which he accused of being responsible for the ``high level of crime in the society.''

Kostunica said Yugoslavia must find who is responsible ``for countless unsolved murder cases, for abductions, smuggling, for slowness and lack of reforms ... for a fall in the living standard, for a looming energy crisis.''

He insisted on an ``urgent'' investigation of the murder of a state security officer gunned down shortly after visiting the president's office earlier this month. Kostunica said the officer had offered to expose certain crime bosses and corrupt policemen.

Disagreements between Kostunica and Djindjic include diverging views of Milosevic's extradition to the U.N. war crimes tribunal. Both agreed Milosevic was guilty of ruinous rule, but Kostunica insisted the June extradition to the Netherlands-based court was unconstitutional. Djindjic argued it was justified because the extradition opened the way for Western financial assistance.

The rift within the new leadership is likely to slow reforms in the country, which faces enormous economic problems following years of misrule by Milosevic.

If the disagreement yields a governmental collapse and early elections, pledges of international investment could also be delayed.

Djindjic has rejected Kostunica's accusations, including allegations he has personal ties with those implicated in cigarette smuggling rings and other illegal activities.

Kostunica accused Serbia's Interior Minister Dusan Mihajlovic, among others, of being ``either unwilling or incompetent'' to crack down on crime.

After Kostunica made his comments, Mihajlovic announced a $140,000 reward fund to boost efforts to solve 22 unresolved murders and abductions of prominent politicians, business and underworld leaders carried out in recent years.

The Serbian justice minister, Vladan Batic, called Kostunica's allegations ``completely arbitrary and malicious'' and said they aimed to destabilize the government in revenge for its extradition of Milosevic.

Batic also accused Kostunica of trying to protect some key figures from Milosevic's regime who are now being investigated or detained.

On Thursday, Kostunica called for a resolution of the dispute between Serbia and tiny Montenegro, which is led by a government that wants to break away from Yugoslavia.

``We must resolve the situation, one way or another,'' Kostunica told reporters. ``We can't make the necessary changes in Serbia's constitution until it's clear whether Serbia will be an independent state or remain part of the (Yugoslav) federation with Montenegro.''

About half the Nato troops scheduled to take part in an operation to collect weapons from ethnic Albanian rebels have arrived in Macedonia.

The peace process received a boost with news of a rebel pledge to give the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) access to prisoners they are holding.

But confusion remains about just how many weapons the rebels intend to surrender to Nato and when that figure will be made public.

On Friday, Nato confirmed that it had a target number of weapons which it aimed to collect from the rebels.

The number was not disclosed but Nato said it was non-negotiable.

The confirmation followed wide discrepancies between estimates by the government and the guerrillas on the size of the rebel arsenal.

Some reports suggest Nato's figure is over 3,000, but there has been no official confirmation.

The Macedonian Government says the rebels hold tens of thousands of guns and other armaments.

In another development on Friday, the ICRC won a pledge from the rebel commander, Ali Ahmeti, for immediate access to Macedonian prisoners held by them.

The ICRC hope to visit some of them on Saturday.

Peace operation

It will take up to 14 days for the full force to be deployed, but weapons collection could begin as early as Monday.

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said the operation could be completed in as few as 10 days.

But Russia's President Vladimir Putin has cast doubt on the mission's chances of success.

A brittle ceasefire between rebels and government forces is generally holding, although doubts persist over what impact the mission can have, given the limited nature of Nato's weapons collection role.

The official strength of the force is put at 3,500 - but the total number of troops offered by individual Nato member governments exceeds that figure.

Nato soldiers will simply receive weapons that are handed over voluntarily - they have no mandate to seize any guns.

They will be divided between four areas - one British, one French, one Italian and one Greek, with contingents from other countries being assigned to one of the four.

None of the battle group locations is in rebel-held areas.

The rebels have been fighting for improved rights for Macedonia's Albanian minority.

A Western-brokered peace accord - which laid the groundwork for the handover of weapons - offers improved language rights and greater representation in the police force.

It also changes the country's constitution to remove references to ethnic background.

Russia's President Vladimir Putin has spoken out strongly against what he called "confusion and misconception" over events in Macedonia.

Speaking after a meeting in Kiev with the Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski, Mr Putin warned against the break-up of Macedonia along ethnic lines.

He also reiterated Russia's view that Nato's actions in Kosovo lie at the heart of Macedonia's current difficulties.

The two presidents stressed their common view of who is responsible for the latest Balkan conflict.

Mr Putin said that the Macedonian leadership was "confronted with terrorists, whose true objective is to redraw the borders in Europe".

The Kremlin rejects the ethnic Albanians' assertions that civil rights issues lie behind the conflict.

Russian policy was welcomed by Macedonia's President Trajkovski, who publicly thanked Russia for its approach.

Officially, Russia backs Nato's operation Essential Harvest to collect weapons from the rebels.

But the Kremlin warns that disarming the rebels may take many years, a far cry from Nato's up-beat assessments of its chances of success.

Mr Putin's own view is more pessimistic. He says he does not believe the rebels will surrender their weaponry voluntarily.

And he repeated Russia's view that Nato should not become involved in military action against the rebels without the approval of the UN Security Council.

Russia links the bombing campaign Nato conducted against Yugoslavia two years ago with Macedonia's fraught security situation.

The Macedonian leadership believes that Nato's presence in Kosovo has done little to curb ethnic Albanian separatists. That view is backed by Moscow, where officials say Nato's intervention spurred on militants committed to building a greater Albania.

The International War Crimes Tribunal has given a warning to the former Yugoslav president, Slobodan Milosevic, after he succeeded in giving a live interview to a US television network.

Mr Milosevic, who is accused of war crimes in Kosovo, on Thursday phoned Fox News from the tribunal's detention centre in The Hague where he is being held.

Mr Milosevic maintained his innocence, attacked the war crimes tribunal and said he was sorry lives were lost during ethnic violence in Kosovo.

The former Serb leader, who refuses to recognise the legitimacy of the tribunal, is next due in court on 30 August.

'Sorry'

"All of us are sorry for the death of any, any person all around the world, there is no question that anybody is happy for the death of any person anywhere," he told Fox News.

He accused the tribunal of fabricating evidence against him.

"Of course they have no evidence. They cannot have evidence for things that never happened... But this so-called tribunal has one specific characteristic. They are able to fabricate the evidence."

He said he had never ordered his troops to kill civilians and that they were under strict orders to "eliminate terrorist groups".

There were clear orders that those individuals who had committed this type of crime should be arrested and punished, he said.

He accused the government in Belgrade of selling him to The Hague in exchange for American money.

He compared this process to the slave trade, saying he thought the sale of human beings was something which belonged in the distant past, not in the 21st Century.

The International War Crimes Tribunal is clearly embarrassed by Mr Milosevic's ingenious attempts to publicise his cause.

The former president also managed to speak to members of the Russian communist party, through a phone call to his brother in Moscow.

The tribunal spokesman, Jim Landale, told the BBC that the television interview was regrettable and something which should not have happened.

He said media interviews were not allowed, although detainees did have access to a phone and a monthly phonecard worth $31 to call their friends, family and lawyers.

Mr Milosevic had claimed not to have been aware of the restriction, but Mr Landale said he had now certainly been made aware, and warned that if abused, communication privileges could be restricted or withdrawn altogether.

Serbia has offered rewards worth about $140,000 for evidence or information leading to the conviction of those responsible for a series of high-profile murders and disappearances in the years of civil conflict.

The Serbian interior ministry has listed 22 cases since 1996, including the disappearance of the former Serbian president, Ivan Stambolic, and the recent killing of a former secret service agent, Momir Gavrilovic.

the Serbian deputy interior minister, Radovan Stojicic, killed in 1997

the former Yugoslav defence minister, Pavle Bulatovic, murdered in February last year

the prominent journalist, Slavko Curuvija, shot dead by unknown gunmen during the NATO bombing campaign against Belgrade in 1999.

SKOPJE, Macedonia (CNN) -- NATO troops have been streaming in to Macedonia poised to collect weapons from ethnic Albanian rebels next week.

NATO commanders and rebel officials have agreed on how many weapons must be turned in under Operation Essential Harvest. It is said to be in the area of 3,000.

Meanwhile NATO troops said they witnessed a major barrage of machine gun and mortar fire, the most serious breach of the cease-fire they have seen for days.

British paratroopers described sustained firing for over an hour around the villages of Ratae, Trebos and Neprosteno along the front-line valley separating Macedonian forces to the south from ethnic Albanian rebels to the north.

From their vantage point high on the hills overlooking Macedonia's second city of Tetovo, 25 miles west of the capital Skopje, they saw tracer fire through the mist, but could not be sure which direction it was moving in.

CNN's Senior International Correspondent Walter Rodgers reported that the agreed number of weapons to be collected will be put to the government in the former Yugoslav republic.

He said rebels and the Macedonian army were pulling back their heavy weapons in preparation for the arms collections to begin early next week.

Danish General Gunnar Lange, the NATO commander in Skopje, did not release the weapons figure but said Operation Essential Harvest hoped to have about a third of the insurgents' arms in hand by the end of next week.

The fiercely nationalist Macedonian Interior Ministry estimated that the militants had 85,000 weapons. But rebels in the ethnic Albanian National Liberation Army (NLA) first said they were willing to hand over just 2,000.

"The first figures from the NLA were starting figures and not really credible, so they required some reassessments and further discussions," Lange said. "I believe the numbers are now credible and close to our intelligence assessments."

Lange said NATO's mission to collect and destroy the weapons would begin next week at about 15 collection points in the cities of Kumanovo, Tetovo and Debar.

The U.S. is not committing troopsbut contributing equipment, logistics and medical supportand unmanned reconnaissance aircraft.

Rodgers said the key date is next Friday when the Macedonian parliament will decide whether the rebels have given up a sufficient strength of their armaments to ratify the arms handover. A two-thirds majority is required.

If the quantity of arms offered is considered a good faith effort, political reforms will follow. If it is not, a Western diplomat told him: "It is no longer a matter of peace but war."

Rodgers said that NATO was worried about the quality of the weapons handed over. If it was just AK-47 semi-automatic machine guns, it would be less than reassuring, he said.

If there were mortars, rockets, rocket propelled grenades and land-mines there would be a much better chance of the cease-fire holding after NATO's withdrawal, Rodgers said.

Rodgers added that there was concern among NATO troops about unexploded armaments and minefields newly laid by both sides.

There were also reports, he said, that some guerrillas were trying to smuggle new and replacement arms across the border from Kosovo. Others, he said, were transferring weapons out of Macedonia to prevent their collection by NATO forces

Emerging at first through email statements and mysterious communiqués, the Albanian National Army was first dismissed as an internet army, a virtual force with mere on-screen presence. But the radical grouping, known as the ANA, is being taken more and more seriously as streams of statements call on Albanians in the region to take up the struggle for a Greater Albania. Claiming responsibility for two attacks in Macedonia leaving 17 soldiers dead, it had been portrayed as a potential spoiler of the Macedonia peace deal. But who are they?

The group seems to have emerged from two main sources: from political parties springing from the Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA, and from National Liberation Army, NLA, fighters in Macedonia disenchanted with the recent peace deal there. They seem to have bases in Macedonia, Kosovo and southern Serbia's Presevo Valley.

So far they have claimed responsibility for the deaths of two policemen in southern Serbia in early August and two separate attacks in Macedonia which claimed the lives of 17 soldiers at a crucial juncture in the recent peace negotiations.

ANA spokesman Alban Hoxha (likely a nom de guerre), in email communications with IWPR, has said the group was founded in December 1999 by a KLA faction committed to fighting for a unified Greater Albania. Based on pre-1913 boundaries, this would take in territory in Kosovo, Montenegro Serbia, Macedonia and Greece.

In a press communiqué released August 20, the ANA high command claimed that that it was not affiliated to any one political party and that press speculation on its make-up and leadership was erroneous.

Skopje has pointed the finger directly at Ramush Haradinaj, leader of Kosovo's third-largest party, the Aliance for the Future of Kosova, as the prime mover behind the organisation. Haradinaj, a former KLA commander, has categorically denied any connection with either the ANA or any other grouping outside of his own party.

Bajram Kosumi, vice-president of Haradinaj's Alliance party, has even spoken out against the ANA, calling their rejection of the Ohrid peace deal between Macedonians and ethnic Albanians harmful. "The implementation of the Ohrid agreement . . . guarantees the rights of the Albanians and this is a strong and convincing argument for the ANA to cease its activities," he said.

The Kosovo press meanwhile has speculated that the roots of the ANA lie in the Albanian Revolutionary Party in Switzerland or the Albanian Communist party in Albania proper. Though the former are proponents of a Greater Albania, they have denied involvement with the ANA.

Skopje has also sought to point the blame at the NLA fighter Xhavit Hasani, who has himself made threatening statements against the Ohrid agreement and claimed responsibility for killing Macedonian forces. Yet Hasani, speaking to the Kosovo press, has also denied having anything to do with the group.

The ANA, for its part, has said in its communiqués that it maintains contacts with all groups which have expressed their desire for a Greater Albania. Prominent among these is the National Movement for the Liberation of Kosovo, whose leader, Sabit Gashi, recently cropped up on a list of undesirable extremists deemed persona non grata by Washington.

Yet such ANA claims are rejected. Gashi has said like other pro-Albanian unity parties that he believes in the ANA's aims but that "we are against the armed struggle this force is pursuing". Besides, he said, the ANA haven't the muscle to derail Ohrid, even if they wanted to.

Yet another group, the challengingly named National Committee for the Liberation and Protection of Albanian Soil, has actually admitted to being the "political avant-garde" even to have set up and organised the ANA. The committee, another mysterious group, is thought to be present in Kosovo, Maceodnia and the Presevo valley in southern Serbia, and believed to have support from some circles in Western Europe and Tirana.

Kushtrim Dukagjini, the pseudonymous leader of the Albanian Soil group, certainly pulls no punches in his criticism of moderate Albanian leaders, such as in Macedonia, accusing them of "high treason" for giving up the fight for the creation of a unified Albania.

Dukagjini even lambasts Haradinaj and former KLA leader Hashim Thaci, now head of the Democratic Party of Kosovo and a presidential hopeful in Kosovo, for "renouncing the ideal of national unification".

Indeed, Dukagjini even attacks the leader of the Macedonian NLA, Ali Ahmeti, for betraying Albanians' national interests in agreeing to lay down arms and accept the Ohrid accord. In an extended interview with the Kosovo pubication Zeri, Dukagjini claims he won't be satisfied until he has achieved a "general uprising for the final liberation and unification of Albania".

But political insiders in Pristina set no store by any of these supposed connections. They look instead to old members of Albania's Sigurimi Security Services, as the ANA's backers, both ideologically and perhaps even financially.

Regional analysts concur that the ANA is the final resting place of ideologues espousing a blend of Marxist-Leninism and nationalism from the Eighties, citing the language found in ANA communiqués as evidence. Macedonian Albanian political leaders Arben Xhaferi, Imer Imeri as well as Ahmeti are all slammed for their "treason to the national ideals".

Whatever its origins, the crucial questions are what scale of threat could the ANA pose, and how far does it really serve as an indicator of growing Albanian extremism? Analysts in Kosovo insist that the longer Kosovo's status remains undecided, the greater the chance for extremism to flourish. The ANA deems the involvement of the UN Mission in Kosovo and KFOR "destructive", arguing that they get in the way of a "fair solution to the Albanian national question".

Whatever the connections, the feeling on the ground in Kosovo is that the ANA in fact enjoys little support in the region. Even groups who were espousing the idea of a Greater Albania are no longer prepared to fight for such an idea.

Jakup Krasniqi, Secretary General of the Democratic party of Kosovo and former KLA spokesman in Kosovo who appealed just two years ago for "the unification of the Albanian lands in one" now says "we should no longer go on with wars".

"We've ousted Milosevic, but you can't eat freedom," complains Milan Andrejevic, a 44-year-old factory worker from Belgrade. "Nor can you eat the squabbling between Djindjic and Kostunica."

Andrejevic's bitter words are typical of reactions to the escalating political tensions in Serbia. On August 17, Vojislav Kostunica, Yugoslav president and leader of the Democratic Party of Serbia, withdrew two of his party's ministers from the Serbian government headed by Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic.

The crisis, which has rumbled on for months, erupted as a result of a feud over control of the police. The dispute has been accompanied by spiralling accusations of corruption and malfeasance.

Kostunica's removal of the two ministers carries no immediate consequences, as Djindjic still holds a large enough majority in the Serbian parliament to remain as premier. But, as labourers like Andrejevic recognise, the continued squabbling will only further delay reforms essential to get the Serbian economy moving again.

"This is really selfish. I cannot afford to buy schoolbooks for my children and they are fighting," said a disillusioned shop assistant in a Belgrade supermarket. "This makes me very depressed. I am not cheering for anyone."

Most people seem to recognise the political calculations behind Kostunica's move. The president does not have the strength to overthrow Djindjic's government or even to force major change - to do so would require the president to make an alliance with Slobodan Milosevic's Socialist Party, Vojislav Seselj's Radicals as well as with the Party of Serbian Unity, founded by the late gangster and former paramilitary leader Zeljko ("Arkan") Raznatovic. This is something Kostunica would not contemplate.

Instead, the president is seeking to procure more places in Djindjic's cabinet for his party. If Djindjic does not accept, Kostunica would press for fresh elections, and seek to tar his rival's administration as corrupt and a failure.

Reform is essential in a country still bearing the heavy burden of Milosevic's legacy. A decade of isolation, wars, fiscal mismanagement and, finally, the NATO bombing, left the country's economy in shambles. But vital foreign aid and investment is being delayed by the instability of the political stand-off.

Most aid received so far has gone to social programmes, while nothing has been allocated to the economy. No one is eager to invest in a country burdened with such an unstable government.

Sources close to the influential G17 group of Yugoslav economic experts say 60 per cent of donations received have been used to pay for last winter's electricity. There is no talk at present of investment.

Referring to the Kostunica-Djindjic struggle, a senior figure in the ruling Democratic Opposition of Serbia told IWPR, "Those close to the government in Belgrade are unanimous in their opinion that help has not yet arrived because the West is waiting to see who's the winner".

Aleksandar Djordjevic, press officer of the European Union office in Belgrade, told B-92 radio on August 21 that the crisis would not jeopardise the donation of 230 million euros Brussels has granted to Yugoslavia.

But other donations and foreign investments are at risk.

The same day Djindjic told Serbian state television that several European prime ministers had expressed confidence in his government despite the on-going crisis, but warned that their support might not last.

On Monday, Nebojsa Medojevic, a Podgorica-based associate of G17, said on Voice of America that "international investors are not going to invest so easily in a country with such an unstable political and legal system".

Medojevic outlined the dilemma: Djindjic is more of a modern, pro-European politician than Kostunica, but he "has lots of connections with the figures from the underworld and crime".

The Yugoslav president, on the other hand, "prefer[s] nationalistic ideologies while supporting a legal state and legality". The world is waiting, Medojevic concluded, to see whether the "Kosovo myth" (Kostunica) or "Colombia myth" (Djindjic) comes out on top.

Meanwhile most Serbs are worse off now than during the Milosevic era. The economy is virtually dormant, waiting for foreign investments.

Unemployment, currently at 850,000, could soon reach 1 million in a country of only 10 million people. The government has warned it may have to sack workers from state-owned giants such as the Zastava car factory in Kragujevac.

In the eleven months since Milosevic's fall, average prices have risen by 130 per cent. Average salaries meanwhile have gone up from 80 to 180 German marks. Bread, the cornerstone of the Serbian diet, has gone up by five times, while the cost of electricity has doubled.

The general impression is that the new government, consumed with internal rivalries, has done little to push through change. The Milosevic apparatus has yet to be demolished.

Medojevic believes the government made a mistake by not moving immediately to dismantle the Milosevic regime. "During the first six months, the government was more interested in self-advertising," he says.

Ambitious announcements outlining reforms have failed to produce results. The police, for example, have yet to make headway in solving the numerous political assassinations carried out during Milosevic's time - and killings have continued.

Some Milosevic cronies, whose criminal activity ran parallel to their political closeness with the former leader, have been arrested. But so-called "apolitical" criminals roam free.

Otpor ("resistance"), the movement behind the famous "He's Finished" sticker popular during Milosevic's last months in power, have come up with a new version dedicated to the feuding Djindjic and Kostunica. It reads: "They're Finished Too".

But for Djindjic and Kostunica to be "finished" Serbian voters need a viable alternative and none has yet appeared.

SKOPJE, Aug 25 (Reuters) - NATO hopes swift progress on resettling refugees on Saturday can counter Macedonian fears that its latest Balkan peace mission will be merely cosmetic.

The Western alliance has set a target of more than 3,000 weapons to be collected from a guerrilla force believed to number at least the same figure and the Skopje government is likely to accept the totals despite misgivings, diplomats said.

But Macedonian officials warned that the 30-day operation, designed to avert another indefinite NATO presence in former Yugoslavia, would be judged on its ability to restore stability, not on estimates of a rebel arsenal which can easily be restocked.

``The operation's success will above all depend on whether there is violence after it is completed,'' Nikola Dimitrov, the Macedonian President's national security adviser, told Reuters.

``It also depends on creating conditions for displaced people to return home (to areas now occupied by guerrillas) or else we will still be witnesses to terror and kidnapping,'' he stressed.

NATO, widely demonised in the tiny republic for failing to contain guerrillas in Kosovo who have supported the rebellion by Macedonia's minority Albanians, said it had fresh assurances from the rebels which would help accelerate the process.

The alliance's Balkan troubleshooter Pieter Feith sought to reassure a deeply sceptical public that NATO had persuaded National Liberation Army (NLA) guerrillas to pull back from a contested road in the volatile Tetovo region, declaring:

``There will be good opportunities in coming days for displaced (Macedonians) to return to villages in that area.''

HELD TO RANSOM?

Angry Macedonians who fled NLA occupation have denied NATO access to a road vital to supplying its 40,000 peacekeepers in neighbouring Kosovo for the past week, demanding a more serious crackdown on rebels than the alliance is willing to countenance.

Ignoring pressure to end the protest, its organiser vowed to resist efforts to shift a barrier of barbed wire, piles of earth and articulated trucks unless the West met a long list of demands and ensured that guerrillas freed Macedonian prisoners.

Feith said the Red Cross had new details about 13 missing Macedonians, but was unable to announce more concrete progress.

``There are good hopes we can get firm commitments from the Albanian side about an early release,'' he told reporters.

Although the peace agreement which was a precondition for NATO's ``Operation Essential Harvest'' outlines plans for more than 125,000 refugees, of whom at least half are Macedonian, to be resettled quickly, it will be tough to make this sustainable.

Critics say NATO's mandate is not long or robust enough to overcome ethnic distrust and enmity and no other credible force has been assembled to fill the vacuum if the 4,500 troops depart.

Most Macedonians believe NATO will gather no more than a fraction of the guns flooding the region, leaving their fragile 10-year-old country at the mercy of Albanian expansionism.

The NATO-led peace force in Kosovo has almost doubled the number of troops patrolling the border with Macedonia since March to clamp down on rampant Albanian arms smuggling but admits it is impossible to seal the mountainous frontier.

The first guerrilla arms -- from pistols to heavy mortars, armour-piercing rocket launchers and anti-tank mines -- are due to be handed in next week at collection points in the northern hills where the NLA has fanned out since surfacing in February.

But a myriad of potential pitfalls remain, not least the need for a nationalist-dominated parliament to ratify reforms granting Albanians more civil rights and jobs in public services within the same ambitious timeframe set for the handover.

Many Macedonians view the entire peace process as flawed at best and a capitulation to ``Albanian terrorism'' at worst. They remain to be convinced and think NATO is missing the point after it backed Kosovo Albanian guerrillas against Serb oppression.

``The NLA is a Western creation,'' declared Todor Petrov, who is coordinating the blockade on the road to Kosovo. ``NATO should ensure that this monster it spawned is now killed off.''

STENKOVEC, Macedonia, Aug 24 (Reuters) - A small crowd of angry Macedonians prevented NATO from using an important supply road for the sixth straight day on Friday as the alliance prepared to collect arms from Albanian rebels.

NATO, which is deploying 4,500 troops in the former Yugoslav republic to gather weapons surrendered by the guerrillas under a peace deal, has urged the government to clear a vital route for its 40,000-strong peacekeeping force in neighbouring Kosovo.

But the protest's organiser said he would resist efforts to shift the barrier of barbed wire, piles of earth and articulated trucks unless the West met a long list of demands, including securing the release of Macedonians held by the guerrillas.

And despite government assurances that efforts would be made to remove the roadblock, the barricade has got bigger, denying NATO troops and equipment access to the Blace border crossing.

The alliance, viewed by many Macedonians as a supporter of ``Albanian terrorism,'' stressed that the blockade would not jeopardise its new Macedonia mission, but said it could not be tolerated.

``We are quite clear that we need freedom of access both on the ground and in the air to conduct this mission,'' said Major Alexander Dick, a spokesman for Operation Essential Harvest.

``We ask everyone to be given that.''

NATO's special Balkan envoy Pieter Feith said the Albanians' National Liberation Army (NLA) had indicated that captured Macedonians might be freed soon, raising hopes that the road could be cleared in the coming days.

``There are good hopes we can get firm commitments from the Albanian side about an early release,'' he told reporters.

BACKLASH FEARED

Todor Petrov, the man behind the blockade, said the few dozen civilians manning it had the backing of all Macedonians, making it tough for the government to act without risking a serious backlash.

``Everyone is behind us,'' said Petrov, a former member of parliament who is standing for re-election in a vacant Skopje seat.

``The government is afraid that if they try to move this blockade they will be a split in the army and the police and members of the security forces will come to defend us here.''

Many of the demonstrators are refugees from villages behind rebel lines in the volatile Tetovo region, 30 km (20 miles) to the west, but their number is swelled by ordinary Macedonians bussed in daily to show their support, Petrov said.

Young children clambered onto the mounds of dirt and rubble to plant Macedonian flags, which litter the area, while others played with a small fire in the burned out shell of a car.

Their parents, some of whom are camped out in a battered caravan, watched from a ring of plastic chairs at the roadside.

One 61-year-old man, who asked not to be named, said NATO's limited 30-day mission to collect an estimated 3,000 weapons from the NLA guerrillas gave few Macedonians confidence that their 10-year-old country was close to peace.

The NLA's commitment to disarm under an agreement granting greater rights to Macedonia's large Albanian minority was simply not credible and NATO was failing to face facts, he added.

``I am not against coexistence,'' said the man, who fled the village of Lesok with his family after NLA fighters occupied it.

``But I don't believe it is possible because our neighbours already have blood on their hands. As soon as NATO departs after collecting a few of their guns they will continue as before.''

Petrov's conditions range from humanitarian demands to downright non-starters such as reparations from the United Nations, which runs Kosovo as a protectorate from which rebels once backed by NATO against Serbia have infiltrated Macedonia.

``The NLA is a Western creation,'' Petrov said. ``NATO should ensure that this monster it spawned is now killed off.''

BELGRADE, Aug 24 (Reuters) - Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica launched a scathing attack on Serbia's interior minister on Friday as the most serious crisis to hit the ruling reform alliance since it ousted Slobodan Milosevic rolled on.

Kostunica blasted minister Dusan Mihajlovic for releasing details of statements concerning the killing of a former secret policeman, whose murder this month sparked the current crisis.

The president's aides gave the statements to investigators looking into the killing.

The former secret police official, Momir Gavrilovic, was gunned down hours after holding talks with Kostunica's staff.

Presidential aides have been quoted in the media as saying Gavrilovic had alleged links between officials and organised crime.

Ministers in Serbia, Yugoslavia's dominant republic, angrily denounced the accusation as an attempt to smear them.

Kostunica said the interior minister could have put the lives of presidential staff in danger by releasing details of the statements, which included the names of two police officials Gavrilovic accused of having ties to organised crime figures.

``I have the impression that this is a call to lynch my associates,'' Kostunica told a news conference in Belgrade.

``And all this came from the person who should prevent that, respect the judiciary, the rule of law and the security of all citizens -- the minister of the interior,'' he said.

The row over the Gavrilovic case has descended into a general slanging match between the two main factions in the ruling DOS alliance -- one loyal to the conservative Kostunica, the other backing Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic.

The crisis in the disparate 18-party alliance, which united to oust the authoritarian Milosevic last October, reached its height a week ago when Kostunica's party decided to withdraw its ministers from Djindjic's Serbian government.

His Democratic Party of Serbia said the government had failed to tackle organised crime and corruption.

Djindjic hit back at Kostunica's allegations, suggesting if anyone had incited a lynching, it was the president's own staff.

``Isn't it a call to lynch when someone from the president's office says that the Serbian government is corrupted?'' Djindjic said in remarks carried by the government website Serbia-Info.

Keen to counter accusations it has done too little to clear up crimes, the interior ministry offered 300,000 German marks ($140,000) for any information leading to the perpetrators of 22 high-profile killings committed during the Milosevic era.

Djindjic, a pragmatist with a willingness to cut corners to get things done, has signalled he will press on with government work even without the president's party on board.

Kostunica's party does not have enough seats in the Serbian parliament to bring down the government on its own but could act as a vocal and powerful critic of the cabinet's future work.

The president said he did not favour new elections for the moment, arguing polls should be held only after Serbia had redefined relations with Montenegro, its estranged smaller partner in the Yugoslav federation.