The Chicago Tribune - January 28, 2001

DOBROSIN, YUGOSLAVIA -- Ethnic Albanian rebels massed Friday in a show of strength in a tense buffer zone and pledged to keep fighting to wrest the 3-mile-wide strip from Yugoslavia and link it to Kosovo.

The zone between Kosovo and Yugoslavia's largest province of Serbia was set up in 1999 in a peace deal ending fighting between Albanian guerillas in Kosovo and Serb forces. The Yugoslav army is banned from the area, letting ethnic Albanian operate unhindered there.

Hundreds of ethnic Albanian guerrillas gathered in this town to celebrate what they consider the first anniversary of a struggle to link the region to Kosovo, whose population is at least 90 percent ethnic Albanian.

"The people of this land do not want anything else apart from freedom and will not ever accept slavery," rebel commander Shefket Muslim told the gathering. "Let Belgrade and the entire world know that we are, have been and will be always in our land, where we belong."

The Yugoslav army has been deployed on the edge of the predominantly ethnic Albanian zone in an effort to contain the Albanians' new rebel movement.

By Tom Hundley

The Chicago Tribune - January 28, 2001

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia -- It began with a series of articles in a far-left Italian newspaper and blossomed into media frenzy that has sent European governments into a panic over depleted uranium.

Il Manifesto, a feisty journal with roots in the Italian Communist Party, was the first to connect the leukemia deaths of three Italian soldiers with their service in Bosnia-Herzegovina. In a series of reports last autumn, the paper suggested a link between the fatal blood disease and depleted uranium shells used by NATO in 1995.

As the story unfolded, two more Italian veterans from Bosnia died, and then two more. By January, as many as 30 Balkan veterans from Italy had been diagnosed with various illnesses, and the Italian news media was in a full-throated howl, demanding that Italian troops be withdrawn from the Balkans until their safety could be guaranteed.

The British press soon caught the fever. A reporter for the normally sober Independent described the "cancerous gray snow" he saw in Bosnia, and blamed depleted uranium for the deaths of 300 Bosnian Serb civilians.

No one could produce any scientific evidence to support a linkage between leukemia and depleted uranium. Indeed, physicists and medical experts who have looked into the matter have long insisted that it is biologically impossible to contract leukemia from depleted uranium. Other health authorities suggested that the badly polluted environment of Bosnia was a far more likely cause of the soldiers' illnesses.

But it hardly mattered. The finger pointing had started and all fingers were pointing at the United States.

The Pentagon owned up to the fact that some 10,800 rounds of ammunition tipped with depleted uranium were fired at Serb targets in Bosnia in 1995 and that another 31,000 rounds were used during the 1999 Kosovo campaign.

Most of the ammunition was fired at Serb tank positions by U.S. A-10 "Warthog" jets. Because of its extreme density, a depleted uranium shell is an especially effective weapon for penetrating tank armor or reinforced concrete.

Questions about the safety of depleted uranium munitions first arose after the Persian Gulf war when U.S. soldiers came down with a variety of mysterious illnesses. Depleted uranium was investigated as a possible cause.

Particular attention was paid to 15 gulf war veterans who still have fragments of depleted uranium embedded in their bodies. So far, none has developed cancer and now, after a decade of study, virtually every expert on so-called gulf war syndrome has ruled out depleted uranium as a cause.

But seven Italian soldiers are dead and no one knows why. France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain and Portugal also are looking into cases of soldiers who served in the Balkans and later contracted leukemia.

To calm European fears, the U.S. government has released reams of data indicating that the risks posed by depleted uranium are minuscule.

For the most part, the European press chose to ignore or downplay evidence that got in the way of their story. And with NATO on the defensive and America portrayed as the nuclear polluter, it was an excellent story.

"We had more reporters here last week then we had in the whole previous year," said Susan Manuel, spokeswoman for the UN Mission in Kosovo. "Italy, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Hungary, Greece, Turkey . . . "

The story has become a propaganda windfall for Yugoslavia, ever eager to portray itself as the victim of NATO aggression. President Vojislav Kostunica, who succeeded Slobodan Milosevic last October, called NATO's use of depleted uranium shells "morally degenerate," and a government pamphlet distributed to the foreign media claims that depleted uranium had transformed vast tracts of Kosovo into "a radioactive desert."

Earlier this month, a team of United Nations environmental inspectors tested the soil, water and vegetation at 11 of the 112 sites in Kosovo where depleted uranium shells were deployed. At eight of the sites, they found low levels of Beta radiation--not enough to present any significant health hazard, but enough to send European politicians into a frenzy of recrimination.

Italy was the first to call for a moratorium on the use of depleted uranium munitions. Germany, Greece and Norway soon followed.

Over one-quarter of the 1,400 Greek troops serving in Kosovo already have asked to go home because of the alleged health risks.

German Defense Minister Rudolf Scharping initially dismissed concerns about depleted uranium as "hysteria syndrome." But after German TV reported that depleted uranium sometimes contained microscopic traces of plutonium--a fact well-known in the scientific community--Scharping reversed himself and summoned the U.S. charge d'affaires in Berlin to "express the concerns that are triggered by the word plutonium."

Almost every government with troops in the Balkans is now screening its soldiers for increased levels of uranium. The notable exception is the U.S.

These days, when NATO peacekeepers approach a site where depleted uranium was used, they wear white space suits and masks.

In marked contrast to the measures the soldiers take to protect themselves, virtually nothing has been done to protect the local civilian population. A week after the UN environmental inspectors held a press conference to complain that children were playing and cows were grazing in "contaminated" zones, UN administrators in Kosovo had yet to start marking off the areas with warning signs.

"We haven't felt any sense of alarm among the local population," said Edward Poultney, spokesman for the World Health Organization in Kosovo. "They look at it in a relative way."

This may be because the local population of Kosovo has come to realize that it was living in an environmental disaster area long before NATO came to visit.

In Mitrovica, the ethnically divided city in northern Kosovo, lead levels in the city's water and air routinely reach up to 200 times higher than the maximum safe levels established by WHO.

Researchers from New York's Columbia University first came here in the 1970s to study the poison's devastating effects on child development.

Last August NATO shut down the area's Zvecan smelter when French soldiers stationed in the area began showing elevated lead levels in their blood. The soldiers have been warned not to make any babies for at least six months.

Across the province, raw waste spills into village streets; abandoned factories leak toxic wastes; rivers and streams reek of sewage.

On the outskirts of Pristina, an ancient coal-burning power plant belches tons of ash into the atmosphere every day. Most children in this city seem to have chronic runny noses and hacking coughs.

In Gnjilane, a row of fast-food stalls has toilets that empty directly into a stream that flows past the base where American soldiers live.

Despite the concerns about depleted uranium, Italian troops based in Djakovica are still camped in an abandoned car factory. They have been there 18 months.

"They are living, eating and sleeping on the floor of a Zastava auto plant where you have lead and other heavy metals and God knows what else all over the place," said a Western diplomat.

A team of WHO experts has started sifting through hospital records to see if there has been any increased incidence of leukemia or cancers among the local population living near the depleted uranium sites. Thus far, they have found nothing, although it would normally take more than two years for such cancers to start showing up.

Kosovo's Albanian population has its own theory on the hazards of depleted uranium.

"They think it's all Serb propaganda aimed at scaring NATO troops out of Kosovo and depriving them of their independence," said UNMIK's Manuel. "They accuse us of inflating the issue."

U.S. soldiers in Kosovo have been instructed to direct all reporters' queries about depleted uranium to NATO headquarters in Brussels, but at Camp Bondsteel, the main American base in Kosovo, GI's scoffed at the concerns.

"See those Abrams tanks over there?" asked one soldier who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

"The armor is made from a depleted uranium composite, and you'll find less radiation inside one of those things than you would in most people's backyards."

Some shells fired in the Gulf and Balkan wars contained a type of recycled nuclear waste that is much more hazardous than depleted uranium, according to a book to be published in France next week.

The book, Depleted Uranium: The Invisible War, could change the debate on whether weapons used by the United States and Nato caused widespread sickness among war veterans and civilians.

The authors, a Frenchman, a Belgian and an American, produce evidence that the US government knew six years ago that its stocks of "safe" depleted uranium had been contaminated by spent nuclear fuels. Whether this recycled material was mixed up with the "classic" depleted uranium (DU) accidentally or deliberately remains unclear.

The book uncovers evidence that the Pentagon knew in 1995 that its armour-piercing shells and bombs contained substances more environmentally menacing than the "natural" depleted uranium that Washington, London and Nato headquarters have repeatedly defended. In other words, the entire DU debate has been based on false premises.

The findings of Martin Meissonnier, Frederic Loore and Roger Trilling have been independently confirmed in the past few days by researchers at a Swiss government laboratory, which analysed spent US munitions from Kosovo. The lab found that the shells contained traces of an isotope of uranium . uranium 236 . which occurs only in nuclear waste.

The Pentagon spokesman, Kenneth Bacon, admitted last week . in reply to a question from one of the authors of the book . that depleted uranium intended for armour-piercing weapons had been contaminated by small amounts of plutonium at the defence department nuclear plant at Paducah in Kentucky.

The vigorous defence of DU weapons by the US and other Nato governments has been based on the argument that DU is a "natural" material of relatively low radioactivity. DU, in its classic form, is the heavy metal left behind . mostly uranium 238 . when the most fissile part of raw uranium, mined from the earth, is removed for use as a nuclear fuel, so classic DU is obtained before the nuclear reaction process.

The book produces evidence that at least some of the weapons used in the Gulf and Balkans contained another kind of uranium, obtained by recycling spent nuclear fuels after the reaction process. The danger is that this form of uranium . sometimes called "dirty depleted uranium" . can contain traces of highly radioactive materials, such as plutonium.

Mr Trilling said yesterday: "The whole debate should go back to square one. We are not saying that we know for sure that DU caused Gulf syndrome sicknesses, or the similar illnesses reported in the Balkans. Personally, I doubt that depleted uranium weapons are the cause, or sole cause, of the Gulf or Balkan syndromes, whatever these weapons may have actually contained.

"What we are saying is that the US government's defence of depleted uranium has been, to be charitable, extremely misleading. The book is a plea for more research . not research on abstract theories about classic depleted uranium, but on the actual contents of US and Nato weapons. Until then, everyone on all sides of the argument is talking in the dark and should shut the hell up."

The book is based on two years of interviews and investigations originally done for a French television documentary, which was shown last year. Extra material has been discovered in the past few months. The writers allow both sides of the argument about classic DU to make their cases in great detail. But there are three important new pieces of information:

* Independent research by Dr Asaf Durakovic, an American of Croatian origin, has found traces of uranium 236 in the urine or bodies of 42 American Gulf veterans. Uranium 236 is not present in the natural world and should not be present in "clean" depleted uranium.

* An official report by the US Army Environmental Policy Institute in 1995 acknowledged the possibility that "depleted uranium used by the Department of Defense contains traces of uranium 236". This implies that some of the DU used in US weapons was created from spent nuclear fuel, not from raw, mined uranium.

* The nuclear plant at Paducah in Kentucky was accused of "waste, fraud, abuse and bad management" by the General Accounting Office, the official US government watchdog, in 1992. The accounting office report protested that the plant was recycling uranium from nuclear waste, without proper safeguards, endangering its own workers. Paducah is one of the three sites in America that produce the DU used by US and Nato weapons. It was the site named by the Pentagon spokesman last week as a source of contamination of some DU weapons with plutonium.

Mr Trilling said yesterday that the "charitable" interpretation of the evidence was that clean and "dirty" forms of DU had been mixed up at Paducah, or in US Department of Defense stocks, some time in the 1980s. A decision had been taken to use up the stocks in the belief, or hope, that only small quantities of highly radioactive material were involved.

"Uranium Appauvri: La Guerre Invisible" by Martin Meissonnier, Federic Loore and Roger Trilling. Robert Laffont; FF139.

OPINION

WASHINGTON: One of the first foreign-policy decisions President Bush must make is whether to keep US troops in the Balkans or withdraw them and transfer peacekeeping duties exclusively to the Europeans.

He would be wise to seek a speedy exit. Otherwise, the Balkans are likely to become an albatross around the neck of the new administration.

Despite a barrage of upbeat propaganda, the missions in Bosnia and Kosovo are not going well. Bosnia is no closer to being a viable country than it was when the Dayton peace accords were signed in 1995.

It is an ethnically segregated international colony with NATO troops policing a delicate cease-fire. In election after election, Serb, Croat, and Muslim voters reject moderate, multiethnic parties in favor of hard-line nationalist forces.

The elections are not meaningful in any case, because most real political power is exercised by an army of arbitrary and arrogant international bureaucrats, namely the UN high representatives and assorted other officials.

The economy is a shambles. A recent index of economic freedom published by The Wall Street Journal and the Heritage Foundation ranked Bosnia 141st out of 156 countries surveyed - right between Syria and Yemen.

The situation in Kosovo is even worse. Since NATO took control in June 1999, there has been massive "reverse ethnic cleansing." More than 220,000 Serbs and other ethnic minorities - nearly 75 percent of the prewar non-Albanian population - have been driven from the province by the Kosovo Liberation Army. The ethnic cleansing has been accompanied by hundreds of murders and kidnappings.

More ominous, the KLA and its front groups are now fomenting violence in the Presevo Valley - the portion of Serbia next to Kosovo - and in western Macedonia. Greater Albanian nationalism is now the main disruptive element in the Balkans, and NATO forces - including US troops - may soon be called on to combat such expansionism. That would be profoundly dangerous.

Mr. Bush has two possible models for dealing with the Balkan problem:

1. The strategy Dwight Eisenhower employed with the Korean War he inherited from the Truman administration.

2. The strategy Richard Nixon followed with the Vietnam War he inherited from the Johnson administration.

General Eisenhower worked to end the Korean War as soon as possible. He succeeded within months of entering office and enjoyed great public acclaim for ending what had become a frustrating and unpopular venture.

Mr. Nixon, on the other hand, sought to end US involvement in the Vietnam War gradually. That approach proved far less successful. By the spring of 1970 - barely a year after he took office - Nixon was already receiving much of the blame for the war and its failures.

The incoming Bush administration should absorb the lesson of those contrasting experiences. The new president is likely to have only a brief window of opportunity to extricate the US from the Balkans morass before the American people begin to hold him responsible for anything that goes wrong.

If the Bosnia and Kosovo missions turn sour - as they show every sign of doing - a restless public will blame the person occupying the White House at the time. It may not be fair, but it will do President Bush little good to proclaim in 2002 or 2003 that he inherited a mess from Bill Clinton.

The crusading ventures in the Balkans are the kind of futile diversions of foreign-policy resources that the new administration should repudiate. It is in the nation's best interest that Bush make that repudiation quickly and clearly. It is also in his political self-interest.

" Ted Galen Carpenter is vice president for foreign-policy and defense studies at the Cato Institute in Washington

BELGRADE, Serbia, Jan. 28 . Fighting between the Yugoslav military and ethnic Albanian guerrillas in the tense buffer zone just east of Kosovo in southern Serbia has risen sharply, with four Serbian soldiers reported wounded today and one killed Friday night, government officials said.

The casualties, the first for the military since they were deployed along the edge of the buffer zone two months ago, led the Yugoslav government to demand that the United Nations Security Council take urgent measures to halt the guerrilla activity.

The violence has worried the new authorities in Serbia, which have vowed to be more democratic than Slobodan Milosevic, the former leader. The government has said it wants to find a political solution but has also requested that the international treaty ending the 1999 war between NATO and Yugoslavia over Kosovo be changed to permit Yugoslav military into the area to deal with the armed militants.

The rebels operate virtually unimpeded in the three-mile-wide buffer zone that separates international peacekeepers in Kosovo from the Yugoslav Army and police troops in Serbia proper. Only lightly armed local Serb police officers are allowed in the area and in November they lost ground to the well-armed Albanian fighters, who call themselves the Liberation Army of Presevo, Medveda and Bujanovac.

The Yugoslav Army and Serbian police forces have dug in along the edge of the mountainous buffer zone and occasionally come into contact with the rebels, exchanging sniper fire. A Yugoslav soldier died of gunshot wounds on Friday night. Another was wounded today and three were slightly injured when their armored vehicle hit a mine, according to Yugoslav officials. It is not known if the rebels suffered any casualties.

State television showed Nebojsa Covic, the Serbian deputy prime minister given the task of solving the crisis, touring the front line and peering through binoculars at guerrilla positions. A shot rang out, setting off a burst of retaliatory fire from the distance.

The position is a difficult one for the government, which is anxious not to appear weak, yet is under pressure from the international community not to use force.

The Yugoslav interior minister, Zoran Zivkovic, said in an interview last week that the police retreat from the buffer zone in November was ordered by people still loyal to Mr. Milosevic in order to cause problems for the new president, Vojislav Kostunica, and his alliance, which had not yet consolidated power in the country.

A new Serbian government took power only last week after the alliance won Serbian elections in December, and it will be the first task of the new police minister to investigate who gave the order, Mr. Zivkovic said.

PARIS, Jan. 28 . The cancer deaths of 24 European soldiers who served as peacekeepers in the Balkans and the illnesses reported by many others have stirred alarm in Europe about the use of depleted uranium in munitions fired from American warplanes during the conflicts in Bosnia and Kosovo.

No one has provably linked the use of depleted uranium to the deaths or illnesses of Balkan veterans, and many scientists consider such a link impossible. Nor is it clear that cancers are occurring at a higher rate among former peacekeepers than in the population at large.

But the fears often stirred by mention of radiation have sent doctors, military experts and politicians scurrying for explanations. Among the research they are re-examining is the work of a retired United States Army colonel who has insisted that some of the illnesses he has observed in Persian Gulf war veterans may be linked to the depleted uranium and uranium 236 isotope he says he found in their bodies.

Asaf Durakovic began examining gulf war veterans when he worked as chief of nuclear medicine at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Wilmington, Del., in the 1990's. Since that post was abolished in 1997, he has continued with his privately funded research in Toronto.

In a recent interview, he said his analysis over the last three years of body fluids of more than 40 American, British and Canadian gulf war veterans who have turned to him keeps turning up evidence of depleted uranium and uranium 236, a more radioactive uranium isotope.

Dr. Durakovic said that, unlike many other institutions involved in testing for uranium, he uses mass spectometry tests that measure the relative abundance of each isotope in the body.

He said he found depleted uranium, including uranium 236, in 62 percent of the sick gulf war veterans he examined. He believes that particles lodged in their bodies and may be a cause of their illnesses.

Radiation experts in France and Britain say they are now rereading his work because he was the first to report that he found uranium 236 in the urine as well as in the bone tissue of gulf war veterans. They suspect that its presence indicates that other contaminants may be present.

"This cannot be conventional depleted uranium," said Monique Sené, a physicist who is prominent in France's large atomic research establishment, when asked about Dr. Durakovic's findings. "The ratios he found do not exist in nature. This contains nuclear waste."

Dr. Durakovic's work has been circulating among NATO medical staff members. Several universities have asked him to collaborate, and he has been invited to brief the government in Italy, which raised the alarm about sick peacekeepers and where 10 soldiers have recently died.

Dr. Durakovic, 60, has worked in radiation biology for over 30 years in Britain, Canada and the United States. His work won plaudits from the Defense Nuclear Agency, the United States Army research center. Last year, he presented his studies at the conference of the European Association of Nuclear Medicine in Paris. His work is now also described in a newly published book, "Depleted Uranium, Invisible War," which has received broad news media attention in France.

Dr. Durakovic said that when he started tests on 24 American gulf war veterans he was asked to examine in 1991 by a colleague at a New Jersey hospital, urine samples were lost and his efforts to get more precise tests were discouraged. Eventually, he said, he was dismissed.

At the veterans hospital in Wilmington, a spokeswoman, Barbara Howell, said Dr. Durakovic's employment ended because "we did not need a full-time nuclear medicine physician." She said that no samples had been lost, and that in all samples tested the levels of uranium "were within normal limits." Dr. Durakovic said he never got test reports. NATO officials fear that the concern in Europe could lead eventually to a ban on munitions containing depleted uranium, which is an exceptionally hard metal and therefore suited for penetrating tanks.

Both NATO and the Pentagon have brought forward scientists and military experts with evidence that the munitions' low-level radiation is not harmful and that natural uranium is always present in the environment and in the body.

But European anxiety rose again this month when laboratories in Switzerland and Finland announced that they had found small amounts of uranium 236 in shrapnel from American weapons found in Kosovo.

Pierre Roussel, a physicist at the National Center for Scientific Research in Paris, noted that the ratio of uranium 236 found so far was tiny, but added, "The problem is that this isotope can only be produced in a reactor, where it is accompanied by far more radioactive elements."

A Pentagon spokesman who left office with the Clinton administration said on Jan. 18 that it was known that because of possible production flaws, some American depleted uranium contained traces of plutonium, neptunium and americium. He suggested, however, that the amounts were so minute that they posed no danger.

Experts in nuclear medicine in Britain, France and the United States said in interviews that they questioned the idea that there was no danger because experiments on animals had shown that uranium particles could get into the bloodstream, organs and bone, where they could deliver low-level radiation. They say the mechanism of radiation damage is still poorly understood and the debate about what might be a harmful dose is still open.

"Depleted uranium, mostly U238, has been found stored in bone, and if it gets into bone, it can reach the bone marrow," said Jean-François Lacronique, the director of the National Radiation Protection Agency in France, which oversees safety for workers in France's nuclear power plants. "Depending on the dose and the length of exposure, any kind of radiation can cause leukemia."

Dr. Durakovic said he believed that there was a fundamental difference between the effects of depleted uranium outside and inside the body.

Outside, he said, it does no harm. But when depleted uranium is blown up it burns at high temperatures, he said, and "it changes into uranium oxides . tiny, hard particles that are microns in size."

"They can stay airborne as aerosols, be blown around by the wind and fall down as dust. Because they are the size of microns, people can inhale them."

Once inhaled, Dr. Durakovic added, uranium can get into the bloodstream, be carried to bone, lymph nodes, lungs or kidneys, lodge there, and cause damage when it emits low- level radiation over a long period. Critics of Dr. Durakovic's work said his findings were inconclusive and did not provide a definitive link between uranium and the illnesses of veterans, but Dr. Durakovic says he does not make that claim but instead that his tests reveal the "distinct" presence of radioactive uranium particles in his patients.

FROM JOHN PHILLIPS IN BELGRADE

YUGOSLAV prosecutors are threatening to place Slobodan Milosevic under house arrest today after depriving him of the special security troops guarding his home.

Judicial sources said that Mr Milosevic was expected to be indicted for fraud, corruption in power and possibly war crimes committed during the Serb forces. crackdown on ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.

Zoran Zivkovic, the Yugoslav Interior Minister, said last week that Belgrade would decide within a fortnight whether to extradite Mr Milosevic to the International War Crimes Tribunal for Yugoslavia in The Hague.

The Foreign Ministry said that if Mr Milosevic wished to retain the use of the praetorian guard at his home in the smart Dedinje district of Belgrade, "he will have to pay for them himself". About 40 officers have been guarding Mr Milosevic since he was overthrown in October.

Meanwhile, a masked man shot the driver of Serbia. s new head of state security and wounded him in the arms. The driver was sitting in a car in Belgrade waiting for Goran Petrovic, who was in a meeting with Serbia. s new Prime Minister, Zoran Djindjic. The new Government, officially installed last week, is Serbia. s first non-Communist leadership since the Second World War. It came to power following last year. s ousting of President Slobodan Milosevic.

Friends of the former dictator and his wife, Mira Markovic, say that they are struggling to come to terms with his fall from office and continue to believe that attempts to bring him to justice are "a mistake".

"Milosevic is finding it extremely hard to deal with his plight," a senior intelligence source, who now works for President Kostunica, said. "He has lost some of his former arrogance, but he sees threats everywhere, from The Hague, from the bounty hunters who want to earn the $5 million on his head from the United States, and from Yugoslav prosecutors working on his arrest and trial."

Mr Djindjic has ordered a purge of the judicial system this week to remove Milosevic appointees among judges and prosecutors. "Only a few faithful members of his entourage have remained loyal to him," the source said.

Mr Milosevic. s lifestyle is dramatically different from the grandeur that he enjoyed during 13 years of power inside the residence built by President Tito during Yugoslavia. s Communist era.

His first-floor study, with its fine view of Sveti Sana Cathedral, is decorated with a portrait of his wife, along with Chinese vases and paintings by Matisse, Rembrandt, Picasso and the modern Yugoslav artist Sava Sumanovic.

A domestic staff of ten works for the family and Mr Milosevic uses an armoured Mercedes limousine with shaded windows on the rare occasions that he moves around Belgrade.

The Milosevics remain a close-knit family. The wife of their son, Marko, and their grandson returned to Belgrade from Moscow last week so that Mr Milosevic could see the little boy. The family like to watch videos of romantic films and have a large collection of Russian popular love song records that Mr Milosevic plays repeatedly in a reception room decorated with a personal portrait.

He refuses to watch television because, he says, "there is nothing on TV except The Hague, The Hague and more Hague".

Friends such as Milan Milutinovic, the Serb President, who is also sought by The Hague tribunal, doubt that he would consider suicide, but they are concerned by the former leader. s longstanding obsession with weapons such as the Yugoslav-made CZ99 pistol that he carries everywhere.

Apart from Mr Milutinovic, the only cronies who continue to visit are former Socialist Party leaders such as Ivica Dacic, Branislav Ivkovic and the SPS secretary, Zoran Angelkovic.

Elsewhere in the Balkans, Albanian militants fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a train in Macedonia on Saturday, heightening fears of a new war in southern Serbia.

In the troubled northern Kosovan city of Mitrovica, diehard Serb militants loyal to Mr Milosevic fired handguns at French peacekeeping troops.

Military sources in Belgrade said that four Yugoslav soldiers were wounded in two other incidents in the tense buffer zone; sniper fire seriously wounded one soldier and three soldiers were hurt when their armoured vehicle hit an anti-tank mine. The sources added that the armed ethnic Albanians of the Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac attacked a Yugoslav Army unit from Donja Susaja village in the demilitarised zone.

On Saturday, a Yugoslav soldier died of wounds received when the rebels opened fire from Donja Susaja on troops deployed outside the zone.

DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan 28 (AFP) - Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica and other Balkans leaders voiced optimism here Sunday about the region's future despite the Kosovo question.

In spite of Yugoslavia's "gloomy" economic picture, Kostunica told a panel at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum meeting here until Tuesday that the region appeared to be reaching a turning point.

"We are optimistic we will have a future like Europe and not like the Balkans of the past," he commented, adding however that 40 percent of the Yugoslav people were unemployed.

Cooperation between all the Balkan countries a year ago "was a fiction" but "now it is within our reach", commented Croatian President Stipe Mesic.

"The region is committed to natural cooperation," he said.

The comments were made during discussions here along with Slovenia's Prime Minister Janez Drnovsek, Albanian President Rexhep Meidani, Greek Foreign Minister George Papandreou, Bulgarian President Petar Stoyanov and Macedonia's President Boris Trajkovski.

Bulgaria's President Stoyanov told the panel that democratization of Serbia was a key-issue for the region and for the whole of Europe.

But he warned: "Kosovo is a stumbling block in Serbia's democratization."

Albanian President Meidani said the concept of a Yugoslav federation was a "Milosevic-forced fiction" and that Montenegro and Kosovo should become "internationally recognized states".

"Neither Federal Yugoslavia nor Serbia can be truly democratic as long as their leaders hold on to territories which have an international right to self-determination," he added.

He added a demand that legislative elections be held Kosovo this year.

Kostunica said Serbia was a multi-ethnic country, and the Kosovo question had to be resolved within the framework of the Yugoslav constitution, the Dayton peace accord and UN resolution 1244.

The resolution, adopted in June 1999 by the UN Security Council, laid down the terms resolving the Kosovo conflict after 11 weeks of NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia.

Greek Foreign Minister Papandreou told the panel: "Being Balkan doesn't mean you can't be sucessful: we are in the euro."

"The Balkans have not only a story of conflicts but also a story of cooperation," he added.

But he appealed for an end to nationalism.

"Let's make borders less important: this means no more nationalism and no more breakup," he urged.

GNJILANE, Yugoslavia, Jan 28 (AFP) - An ethnic Albanian guerrilla group operating in southeast Serbia called Saturday for international mediation to end the violence.

"The international community must put pressure on Yugoslavia to work towards a political solution," said Tahir Dalipi, a member of the so-called Liberation Army for Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac (UCPMB) told AFP.

The UCPMB is a rebel group, based just inside Serbia, fighting Serb security forces in the Presevo Valley area, home to some 70,000 ethnic Albanians and which it dubs "Eastern Kosovo."

Serbia wants to return to the situation before the NATO bombing of Serb targets in spring 1999 "and that's impossible" Dalipi said.

tension has risen in troubled southeastern Serbia in recent days. A Yugoslav soldier died Saturday of wounds he received the previous day.

On Friday a UCPMB fighter was reportedly killed by a Serb sniper.

On Sunday five Serbs and two ethnic Albanians were injured in incidents in the Presevo region, which borders Kosovo where the population is largely ethnic Albanian.

Serbian sources said the "terrorists" -- Belgrade's term for the UCPMB guerrillas -- "opened sniper, heavy machine gun and mortar fire, as well as grenades" on the army positions outside the zone all day Sunday.

"It's the fourth day of clashes. It's a real war," said Dalipi. The UCPMB, which is thought to be linked to separatist groups in Kosovo, has vowed to liberate the ethnic Albanians from Yugoslav rule, raising fears that fighting might spread beyond the enclave the group controls on the border.

Yugoslav Foreign Minister Goran Svilanovic announced Sunday that he had called for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council to seek measures to stop the Albanian extremists' paramilitary activities in the region.

The rebel group is based in Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac, three towns in the area.

According to the 1999 accord between NATO and Belgrade, only lightly-armed Serbian police are allowed to patrol the five-kilometer (three-mile) demilitarized zone between Kosovo and Serbia proper.

It was set up to minimise chances of clashes between Belgrade forces and the NATO-led peacekeeping force IN Kosovo, but it has since become a safe haven for the rebels.

BUJANOVAC, Yugoslavia, Jan 28 (AFP) - Four Yugoslav soldiers and three others were wounded in separate incidents in the tense buffer zone in southern Serbia bordering Kosovo, military sources said Sunday.

The four soldiers, who were not in a critical state, were injured when a rocket exploded in front of their vehicle, the source said.

Two fighters from the armed ethnic Albanian Liberation army of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac (UCPMB) were also reported injured in Gornji Susaj near Presevo, according to a source close to the guerrilla group.

Violence in the area has flared up over recent days. "It's the fourth day of attacks, it's a real war," said Tahir Dalipi of the UCPMB's political wing.

Earlier reports from a different military source had said that sniper fire seriously wounded one soldier and that three other soldiers were hurt in a separate incident when their armoured vehicle hit an anti-tank mine.

Serbian sources said the "terrorists" -- Belgrade's term for the UCPMB guerrillas -- "opened sniper, heavy machine gun and mortar fire, as well as grenades" on the army positions outside the zone all day Sunday.

Later Sunday, the state Tanjug news agency reported that four soldiers had been injured "in Albanian terrorist attacks in the Presevo region."

The Yugoslav army has not yet commented on the varying reports. Elsewhere, a 22-year-old civilian, Nenad Mitic, was reportedly shot and wounded in the village of Slavujevac, near where the other incidents reportedly took place.

Tanjug reported that Mitic was transferred to the hospital in Vranje and that he was not in a critical condition.

Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Nebojsa Covic, who was in the region at the time called on "extremists to stop their provocation" in the region, in an interview broadcast on the state RTS television channel.

Meanwhile, Yugoslav Foreign Minister Goran Svilanovic demanded an urgent session of the United Nations Security Council to prevent violence by the UCPMB rebels in the buffer zone, state television reported.

The UCPMB are seeking to unite an area in the buffer zone with UN-administered Kosovo, from where they draw much of their support.

According to the 1999 accord between NATO and Belgrade, only lightly-armed Serbian police are allowed to patrol the five-kilometer (three-mile) demilitarized zone between Kosovo and Serbia proper.

It was set up to minimise chances of clashes between Belgrade forces and the NATO-led peacekeeping force, KFOR, but it has since become a safe haven for the rebels.

Tension in the Presevo region has been high over the past few days. UCPMB fighters have clashed with both Serbian security forces and KFOR soldiers in neighbouring Kosovo.

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (AP) - Four Yugoslav army soldiers were injured Sunday in new fighting between government troops and ethnic Albanian guerillas in a tense part of southern Serbia near Kosovo.

The fighting came after Yugoslavia's foreign minister called for an ``urgent meeting'' of the U.N. Security Council to deal with the escalation of violence in southern Serbia, where an army soldier was killed Friday.

Foreign Minister Goran Svilanovic demanded an ``immediate and strong condemnation of terrorist attacks'' and said those responsible for the soldier's death must be punished.

On Sunday, one soldier was seriously wounded in an exchange of fire in a contested area along the boundary with Kosovo, and three others suffered minor injuries when their vehicle hit a land mine, said Nebojsa Covic, deputy prime minister of Serbia, the main Yugoslav republic.

Covic said Yugoslav troops repelled guerrillas who were trying to drive deeper into Serbian territory. The Belgrade-based Beta news agency reported that three ethnic Albanian fighters were injured, as well as one Serb civilian. who apparently was trapped in the cross fire.

The accounts could not be independently confirmed.

Also Sunday, local media in ethnic Albanian Kosovo reported that a Serb man was stabbed to death late Saturday in the town of Kosovo Polje, near the provincial capital, Pristina. They said police were looking for two suspects in the case.

U.N. police could not be reached Sunday for more information on the incident.

Kosovo is run by the United Nations (news - web sites), and NATO (news - web sites) peacekeepers are deployed in the province as part of a deal that ended a 1999 NATO bombing campaign, which drove Serb forces from Kosovo after a crackdown on ethnic Albanians there under former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic (news - web sites).

Ethnic Albanian militants are operating in a 3-mile-wide buffer zone that was set up under the agreement and separates Kosovo from the rest of Serbia. The guerillas want to unite the zone with Kosovo.

Most of the attacks have targeted Serbian police, who are the only armed Yugoslav forces allowed in the zone, but the guerrillas recently started shooting at federal army troops deployed on its edges.

Svilanovic called on international officials, including U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) and NATO Secretary General Lord George Robertson, to act ``urgently'' to halt attacks by the militants.

The situation in Kosovo and the fighting in the buffer zone are major problems for the pro-democracy Yugoslav leaders who have replaced the Milosevic regime over the past few months.

Amid lingering ethnic tension after ten years of wars that ripped Yugoslavia to pieces, they face the task of lifting the country out of its political isolation and economic morass.

Sharing a stage Sunday with other Balkan leaders at the World Economic Forum (news - web sites) in Davos, Switzerland, Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica (news - web sites) said he wants to establish ``good relations with all our neighbors'' and a ``democratic dialogue'' to overcome the wounds of a decade of regional turmoil.

Meanwhile, there was more trouble at home in downtown Belgrade, where the chauffeur of the newly appointed head of Serbian state security was shot and wounded Sunday, witnesses and police said.

The driver was waiting for Serbian security chief Goran Petrovic, who was in a meeting with Serbia's new prime minister, Zoran Djindjic, when an assailant approached the car, opened the door and shot him in the arms, police said.

His life was not in danger, Serbian state television reported.

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (AP) -- Yugoslavia's foreign minister is seeking an urgent meeting of the U.N. Security Council to deal with an escalation of violence in southern Serbia.

The request comes amid continuing attacks by ethnic Albanian rebels seeking independence together with the nearby province of Kosovo.

In a statement released late Saturday, Goran Svilanovic called for an "urgent meeting" of the Security Council, apparently meaning a special session.

He demanded an "immediate and strong condemnation of terrorist attacks," as well as "punishment of culprits" responsible for the death of the Yugoslav soldier on Friday and similar attacks in the recent past.

Ethnic Albanian militants are operating in a five-kilometre (three-mile) zone separating Kosovo from Serbia proper.

The buffer zone was set up under a 1999 deal which forced Yugoslav government troops to pull out of the province, now run by the United Nations and a NATO-led international peacekeeping force.

Svilanovic's statement called on international officials, including U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and NATO Secretary General Lord George Robertson, "to urgently take all measures to stop the Albanian terrorists."

A military statement said a group of 20 armed terrorists targeted a Yugoslav Army vehicle in the contested area on Saturday, causing "no serious consequences" for the army personnel. It said the federal forces "energetically responded" to the rebel fire.

On Saturday, Yugoslavia's interior minister, Zoran Zivkovic, warned that Yugoslavia would resort to police and army units to subdue the rebels.

Zivkovic said: "We shall not wait until spring ... The terrorists will then show even more interest to advance and we would be on the verge or in a conflict with many casualties."

The new Yugoslav leadership is trying to avoid a brutal crackdown on the ethnic Albanian rebels.

Repression of Kosovo Albanians by former President Slobodan Milosevic ultimately triggered the 1999 NATO military intervention.

LANDOVICA, Yugoslavia -- The boy wiggles through thick brambles and slides into the bomb crater. He comes often to this spot - a wooded hollow among rolling hills of vineyards - to explore the crumbled bunker or hunt for pieces of the Yugoslav tanks blasted in the NATO bombardment.

Nexhat Gashi has never heard of depleted-uranium ammunition. He shrugs when asked about radioactivity. He has no clue his special hideout is part of a global uproar about possible health risks from the armor-busting shells used by U.S. forces during the 1999 airstrikes.

But the 14-year-old is certain about one thing. "The whole environment of Kosovo is sick," he says while poking around the bomb site about 35 miles southwest of Pristina, the provincial capital. "Why isn't anyone trying to fix that first?"

The question rings loudly across Kosovo.

Worries about possible links between illnesses and depleted uranium have sent a chill through the highest political and military levels of NATO nations. But many ethnic Albanians wonder why obvious ecological calamities in Kosovo - with clear health consequences - aren't getting the same attention.

It doesn't take a Geiger counter to measure Kosovo's ecological crisis. Winds carry lead dust. Untreated sewage spills onto village streets. Toxic metals leak from neglected factories. Raw waste pours into rivers, leaving some stretches totally lifeless.

Such scenes are not uncommon in the Balkans, but Kosovo suffers particularly. The Yugoslav government made few ecology-minded investments in its province after the majority ethnic Albanians began setting up their own rival administration more than a decade ago. The 78-day NATO attack added to the problems by striking at industrial targets.

"It's a catastrophe," said Bejtullah Bejtullahu, an environmental activist in Kosovska Mitrovica, considered one of the most polluted areas in Kosovo.

Lead levels in the city's air and water have reached up to 200 times World Health Organization guidelines. NATO peacekeepers closed the giant Zvecan lead smelter in August, but lead residue is still carried by the breeze and works its way down to the water table and into the food chain.

French soldiers in the city are routinely tested for lead levels and those with elevated readings are moved out and advised against conceiving a baby for several months, U.N. officials said.

Another part of the idle industrial complex - which produced fertilizers, batteries and high-quality zinc - leaks dangerous substances such as cadmium, arsenic, nickel and sulfuric acid. A tank containing nearly 160,000gallons of sulfuric acid ruptured in September, leaking its contents into the Sitnica River and killing tens of thousands of fish.

Near the Macedonian border, a cement plant churns out a fine white dust that sometimes comes down like snow flurries. Respiratory problems and tuberculosis are common. An adjacent facility making asbestos products, a known carcinogen, was only recently closed.

Makeshift landfills and random dumping dot Kosovo, allowing tainted runoff to reach rivers and water supplies.

More than 75 percent of rural homes draw water from unprotected, shallow wells, the World Health Organization says. High levels of fecal contamination have led to a sharp rise in diseases such as hepatitis A.

With no real environmental enforcement, there are abuses. An old fuel storage tank leaked directly into a bog in the southwestern village of Suva Reka. A pile of dozens of old car batteries was tossed into a roadside ditch near the western city of Pec.

Outside Pristina, coal-burning power plants have left a mountain of black ash visible for miles. Strong winds can push the grains into Kosovo's largest city, mixing with exhaust from the many diesel generators and cars with few pollution controls.

"We call it the Pristina cough," said Daut Maloku, head of the environmentalist Green Party of Kosovo.

"We are living in a toxic place," he added. "There are so many things here to make you ill: the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat. Why are we so worried about only depleted uranium when we have so many more pressing problems?"

Yet each day brings more resources devoted to the uranium question.

WHO plans to assign a special investigation team and help coordinate a voluntary testing program for citizens. NATO forces have started placing warning signs at 112 known areas hit by uranium shells, which can punch through thick armor at supersonic speed and ignite in a deadly fireball.

Experts note there haven't been any in-depth studies of depleted uranium.

"A lump of (depleted uranium) sitting on the ground is not especially a problem. The big worry is if any of this material is ingested," said Dave Phillips, an environmental toxin specialist at the Institute of Cancer Research in London. "There is just so much we don't know."

Along the swatch of southwestern Kosovo where most of the 31,000 depleted uranium rounds fell, doctors have not reported any spike in cancer cases or other possible radiation-linked cases.

"It's fine to look closely at this, but I think they should look at the whole picture. Kosovo is an environmental tragedy," said Dr. Bashkim Meqa, director of the Isa Grezda Hospital in Djakovica.

"If we don't have clean water and clean air, what is the point in worrying about something that may or may not make you sick?"

But the environment is a low priority for U.N. overseers struggling with huge security and administrative matters. Just $1 million of the U.N.'s $250 million Kosovo budget is marked for environmental projects. More money may be sought from donor nations at a February conference in Brussels, Belgium.

"It's similar to any developing country where you have to pace the various issues to improve incrementally," said Gerald Fischer, one of the top U.N. civil administrators. "I think the emphasis is on incremental."

BBC - 28 January, 2001

Fresh fighting has erupted along the boundary between Kosovo and Serbian-administered territory, a day after the Yugoslav Government demanded an urgent United Nations Security Council meeting to discuss the actions of ethnic Albanian guerrillas in the region.

The Yugoslav Army said four of its soldiers were lightly wounded in the Presevo Valley region of southern Serbia when a rocket-propelled grenade was fired at their vehicle.

The past week has seen the most serious violence in the region since last November, when four Serb policemen were killed by suspected Albanian guerillas.

The rebels are fighting for the independence of three Albanian-populated towns in a part of southern Serbia which adjoins Kosovo.

After a guerilla attack on Friday, a Yugoslav soldier died from his wounds.

The rebels have been using 5km-deep military exclusion zone on the boundary, patrolled Nato-led K-For peacekeeping forces, to attack Serbian security forces.

Following the death of the Yugoslav soldier, the country's Foreign Minister, Goran Svilanovic asked the UN Security Council to hold an urgent session on the continuing violence in the region.

He said the council should take all necessary measures to halt the activities of the guerrillas, in an effort to stabilise the region.

In a statement, the Yugoslav Army said one of its units came under what it called "strong terrorist" sniper fire on Sunday morning.

It said the guerrillas fired anti-tank grenades and mortars in an attempt to prevent the Yugoslav unit from taking position on a hill.

Belgrade has repeatedly complained that the exclusion zone, or buffer strip, along the border - imposed by Nato as part of the 1999 ceasefire agreement - has given the rebels a free hand to mount attacks on Serb troops.

But the guerillas, of the Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac (UCPMB), said the Yugoslav Army has fuelled the violence by firing shells into the exclusion zone.

Speaking to the Reuters news agency, Tahir Dalipi, a rebel spokesman, accused Serb security forces "are shelling from all sides."

He said: "Even houses of the Albanians are getting shelled and as a result the civil population is fleeing."

BBC - 28 January, 2001

The presidents of Yugoslavia and Croatia have agreed to restore diplomatic relations between the two states.

Croatia, which broke away from the Yugoslav Federation in the mid-1990s to become an independent state, severed ties with Serbia during the Kosovo crisis in 1999.

Meeting for the first time in Switzerland, the new Yugoslav President, Vojislav Kostunica, and the Croatian President, Stipe Mesic, agreed their countries will exchange ambassadors.

Correspondents say it is another step by the new Yugoslav government to strengthen ties with its neighbours, after years of isolation under the regime of Slobodan Milosevic.

According to the Croatian news agency HINA, the two leaders discussed the issue of co-operation with the United Nations War Crimes Tribunal.

Last week, the court's chief prosecutor, Carla del Ponte, failed to persuade Mr Kostunica to extradite Mr Milosevic to face war crimes charges at the Hague-based court.

But under President Mesic, Croatia has been shown greater willingness to work with the tribunal to bring Croatian war crimes suspects to justice.

The two leaders also agreed to boost economic co-operation and ease visa restrictions between the two countries.

They were both taking part in a discussion at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss resort of Davos.

Other Balkan leaders, including the presidents of Albania, Macedonia and Slovenia also took part in the discussion.

Yugoslavia, whose two remaining republics are Serbia and Montenegro, first established diplomatic relations with Croatia in January 1994.

BBC - 28 January, 2001

The driver of Serbia's new security chief has been shot and wounded in Belgrade.

Police say the driver was attacked while he was waiting in the car for the security chief, Goran Petrovic, who was in a meeting with the new Serbian prime minister, Zoran Djindjic.

The police say a masked gunman opened the car door and shot the driver in the arms.

Mr Petrovic was appointed on Thursday to replace a Milosevic loyalist, Rade Markovic.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service

29 January, 2001

Davos, Switzerland (dpa) - In an historic event, the leaders of almost all the Balkan states sat together in a panel discussion Sunday in Davos, with all expressing their hopes for building up democracy and joining the rest of Europe after a decade of conflict.

With new Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica the biggest attraction in the panel at the World Economic Forum (WEF), the presentations made clear that the key powder keg issue in the region's future will be the future of Kosovo.

Besides Kostunica, the presidents or prime ministers of Slovenia, Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia and Slovenia took part in the discussion, along with Greek Foreign Minister George Papandreou, Swiss Foreign Minister Joseph Deiss and panel moderator Carl Bildt, the U.N.'s special envoy to the Balkans.

``This is a unique occasion,'' Bildt said, noting it was the first time that all the region's leaders, except for those of Romania and Bosnia-Herzegovina, were sitting down together.

``After the significant political changes last year, we now have a chance for a new start.''

But he quickly cautioned that there were ``still massive problems'' to be overcome.

Kosovo, or the question of Kosovo-Albanian self-determination, quickly emerged as the most prominent issue.

Albanian President Rexhep Meidani demanded that a date should be set for elections in Kosovo on the region's future and said he wanted to remind the audience that Yugoslavia or Serbia were still ``holding on to territories where people want self-determination''.

Kostunica, in his prepared statement, only held out the promise of the new Belgrade leadership to ``establish good relations with all our neighbours, especially Bosnia-Herzegovina and with Albania''.

But in the question-and-answer session - in which all the questions posed from the audience were meant for the new Yugoslav leader - Kostunica said that Belgrade would seek a solution on Kosovo within the framework of U.N. Resolution 1244.

That resolution would establish a U.N. administration of Kosovo while recognising Kosovo as being within the territorial bounds of Serbia. But it does not rule out a possible referendum later on about determining Kosovo's future status.

Bulgarian President Petar Stoyanov put the problem the most bluntly: ``I believe that the unresolved issue of Kosovo will prove to be a stumbling block for Yugoslavia's movement toward democracy.''

The Sofia leader also said he wanted to disprove a contention that with the removal of former Yugoslav strongman Slobodan Milosevic, the problem of the Kosovo-Albanians not cooperating with Belgrade would be resolved.

However, instead of voting for Kostunica, they boycotted the December elections because ``they want their own separate state'', Stoyanov said.

Papandreou appeared to put Greece on the side of Belgrade in the Kosovo question. He said it should be resolved under resolution 1244, and he also spoke about a future for stability in the Balkan region which would see ``no more nationalisms, no new states, no break-ups''.

Kosovo Polje/Belgrade (dpa) - A Serb man was killed and another injured in an attack in Kosovo Polje Saturday night, the Beta news agency reported Sunday.

A local Serb leader, Svetislav Grujic, told the agency that Dragomir Doterovic was ``cruelly'' killed on his way home and that Radovan Dobric sustained serious injuries from a beating.

``This crime has further frightened the remaining Serb population,'' Grujic said.

More Clashes Erupt After Belgrade Appeals to U.N.

BELGRADE (Reuters) - Fresh fighting erupted in southern Serbia on Sunday, after Yugoslavia demanded an urgent U.N. Security Council session to halt ethnic Albanian guerrilla attacks following the killing of one of its soldiers.

The Yugoslav army said four other soldiers were lightly wounded when a rocket-propelled grenade fired by ``terrorists'' exploded in front of an armored vehicle on Sunday morning.

A spokesman for the guerrilla group said three of its fighters had been lightly wounded in clashes since Saturday near the village of Gornja Susaja in Presevo municipality, a few miles east of Kosovo.

The Presevo Valley region, inhabited predominantly by ethnic Albanians, has over the past week seen the most serious fighting since November, when four Serb police were killed.

A hospital official in the town of Vranje said a Serb civilian who found himself in the line of fire was also injured on Sunday.

In a statement, the Yugoslav army's Pristina Corps said its unit had been attacked by ``strong terrorist'' sniper fire, anti-tank grenades and mortars when the guerrillas tried to prevent it from taking position on a hill.

Fighting In Woods And Hills

State television showed the wooded and hilly area echoing to the sound of gunfire, and visiting Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Nebojsa Covic taking cover while observing the area with binoculars.

``Everything has its limits and some things cannot and will not be allowed. That is why I appeal in the name of the federal and republican governments for a halt to the provocations by extremists,'' Covic later told reporters.

Tahir Dalipi, a spokesman for the political council of the guerrilla group, known as the Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac (UCPMB), blamed the Yugoslav army for starting the fighting.

``They are shelling from all sides, even houses of the Albanians are getting shelled and as a result the civil population is fleeing,'' he told Reuters by phone.

The guerrillas are fighting what they say is Serbian repression of ethnic Albanians in the area of Serbia adjoining U.N.-ruled Kosovo.

Belgrade has repeatedly complained that the terms of the cease-fire agreement with NATO (news - web sites) which ended the 1999 Kosovo war, barring all forces but local police from the buffer strip along the Kosovo border, have given the guerrillas a free hand.

Dalipi said the Yugoslav army had been firing shells from outside the zone into it, but that its soldiers did not enter the strip itself.

Yugoslav officials have demanded that NATO peacekeepers guarding the Kosovo border do more to stop infiltration into Serbia proper by Kosovo-based guerrillas.

A Yugoslav soldier died on Saturday from injuries sustained in a clash on Friday, prompting Yugoslav Foreign Minister Goran Svilanovic to request that the United Nations (news - web sites) Security Council hold an extraordinary session on the fighting in southern Serbia.

BELGRADE, Jan 28 (Reuters) - The driver of Serbia's new state security chief was wounded on Sunday when a masked gunman opened the door of the official car and fired at him, state television reported.

The attack took place as the driver was waiting in the car of state security chief Goran Petrovic, who was holding talks in Belgrade with new Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic and Interior Minister Dusan Mihajlovic, it said.

Djindjic, speaking outside the headquarters of his Democratic Party where the meeting took place, said the attack was an attempt by organised crime to intimidate Serbia's new leaders.

``We were discussing about the start of fighting against organised crime in Serbia and it was an answer from organised crime to block this activity,'' Djindjic told Reuters Television.

``But we will continue... it is evidence that our policies are going in the right direction,'' he added.

Petrovic was appointed to his new job on Thursday night, shortly after the Serbian parliament approved the reformist government led by Djindjic, who has pledged to clamp down on crime and corruption.

He replaced Rade Markovic, the feared chief of state security under former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, who was ousted in a popular uprising last October.

State television said a man wearing a black mask opened the car door and fired. It said the driver suffered minor injuries and was taken to hospital.

But Tanjug news agency said the driver, a policeman identified as Dragan Jaksic, was severely injured and Djindjic said he was undergoing an operation.

``This is another proof that it is necessary to apply decisive measures to suppress those who have for years, partly under the auspices of the services, sown terror, killed people, abducted people, carried out political killings,'' Djindjic said.

His government would draft new laws on Monday to increase penalties for abduction, extortion, car theft and drug trade.

``Those whose interests are affected will have to deal with the fact that Serbia is becoming a state ruled by law,'' he said.

By David Crossland

DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan 28 (Reuters) - Albanian President Rexhep Meidani said on Sunday Yugoslavia should allow self-determination for Kosovo and Montenegro to help ensure long-term stability in the Balkans.

Meidani told the World Economic Forum business summit in Davos that the future of the Balkans could not be based on ``artificial federative concoctions'' which were an obstacle to Yugoslavia becoming fully democratic.

His comments were echoed by Bulgarian President Petar Stoyanov, who told the Forum: ``I fear that the unresolved Kosovo issue may prove a stumbling block in the way of Serbia's democratisation.''

Meidani and Stoyanov were addressing Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica during a panel discussion which was also attended by the presidents of Croatia, Macedonia and Slovenia.

Kostunica himself said his country faced huge tasks in rebuilding after four decades of communism, a decade of wars, international sanctions and NATO bombing but he was hopeful that a new generation could make it happen.

Meidani said: ``I am confident that the future of Kosovo, Montenegro and Serbia itself, just as the future of the Balkan region, cannot be based on artificial federative concoctions.''

Instead it should be based on the ``development of viable political and democratic systems,'' he said.

Montenegro, a tiny Adriatic republic of some 600,000 people, is the junior partner with Serbia in what remains of the Yugoslav federation. After chafing for years under the autocratic rule of former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic, its leaders have been pressing for independence.

The U.N. arrangements that ended the Kosovo conflict are ambiguous on whether the territory, a Serbian province currently under international rule, should remain part of Serbia. But they stress the sovereignty of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, of which Serbia is the dominant republic.

Virtually all ethnic Albanian leaders want independence but Serbia and Western powers oppose it.

Bulgaria's Stoyanov said the argument that Kosovo Albanians might accept membership of a democratic, non-autocratic Yugoslavia might sound logical, but added: ``I don't think it sounds convincing enough to the Kosovo Albanians.''

Kostunica pledged to seek a political solution for Kosovo within the framework of a U.N. Security Council resolution which covers the international presence in Kosovo.

BUILDING A CASTLE ON SAND

Kostunica said the Balkans now faced the difficult task of ``creating stability in this region of instability.''

``It is like building a castle on sand,'' he said.

He added that he was optimistic despite ``gloomy'' conditions in Yugoslavia, burdened by half a century of centralised economic planning followed by international economic sanctions and then the bombing by NATO in 1999.

Yugoslavia now had 800,000 refugees, an unemployment rate of 40 percent and $30 billion worth of damage wrought by the NATO campaign, Kostunica told the Forum.

Nevertheless the future looked ``rather promising,'' he said, in part because the people rebuilding Yugoslavia's institutions had nothing to do with the regime of Milosevic, ousted last year in a popular revolt after Kostunica won a general election.

Yugoslavia was now establishing a democratic dialogue with Bosnia, Albania and Montenegro, Kostunica said.

``(Even) with all the difficulties I am optimistic about the future,'' he added, pledging to work towards a ``Balkans looking more and more like Europe and less and less like the Balkans of the past. The people of the Balkans deserve that.''

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia, Jan. 28 (UPI) -- The commander of the NATO-led peacekeeping force in Kosovo said international troops could intervene if Yugoslav security forces, without prior agreement with KFOR -- the joint U.S.-European peacekeeping force -- moved against ethnic Albanian guerrillas in southern Serbia.

Tensions have been mounting in the region, where a Yugoslav soldier was reported killed and four others wounded by guerrillas in the past three days.

Yugoslav Foreign Minister Goran Svilanovic has sent a protest to the United Nations Security Council, calling on it to track down and punish the Albanian guerrilla attackers. But General Carlo Cabigiosu countered in an interview with the Pristina-based Albanian-language newspaper Koha Ditore Sunday he expected Serbian police forces not to mount a "mopping-up" operation in the Presevo Valley. Cabigiosu suggested that this could put at risk the international support Yugoslavia had been received since the ouster of former President Slobodan Milosevic's regime.

The Presevo Valley is a narrow strip of southern Serbian territory adjoining Macedonia and Kosovo's eastern administrative boundary.

At the same time, the general said that an attempt by Albanian guerrillas to provoke wider conflicts might have serious consequences. He added that there were ethnic Albanians from Macedonia and Albania among members of the self-styled Liberation Army of Presevo, Bujanovac and Medvedja, and adding that this might destabilize the whole region.

But he warned that KFOR might step in in the Presevo Valley if Yugoslav troops intervened without first obtaining approval from KFOR.

Meanwhile, Yugoslav army units stationed close to the ground security zone that divides Serbia proper from Kosovo have been pounded by guerrillas with fierce fire from shoulder-help missile launchers, heavy machineguns, hand grenades, and infantry weapons in the past three days, Belgrade radio B92 reported Sunday.

A soldier was seriously wounded in the area of Donja Susija, outside the zone, Sunday and three others were slightly injured when an armored vehicle hit a land mine, the radio said.

On Saturday, guerrillas from inside the security zone, from which the Yugoslav army is excluded, attacked a mechanized unit of the Third Army Corps, stationed on Mt. Golemo Brdo above Donja Susaja, the report said.