Subject: Albanian guerrillas fire at Serbian police in the south: police
Date: Thu, 28 Dec 2000 10:00:16 PST
From: C-afp@... (AFP)
Organization: Copyright 2000 by Agence France-Presse (via ClariNet)
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LUCANE, Yugoslavia, Dec 28 (AFP) - Ethnic Albanian guerrillas
opened fire on Serbian police in southern Serbia but no casualties
were reported, a police official told AFP.
Albanian snipers opened fire on Serbian police in Lucane,
outside the buffer zone separating Kosovo from Serbia proper at
around 6.30 am (0530 GMT), said the official who asked not to be
named.
He said no one was injured in the shooting.
A police chief in the southern town of Vranje, Colonel Novica
Zdravkovic confirmed the attack, Belgrade independent B92 radio
reported.
Lucane is outside the five-kilometer (three-mile) wide buffer
zone set up under a NATO-Belgrade accord to separate peacekeepers
posted inside the province from Yugoslav troops in Serbia proper.
Most of the town has come under the control of Albanian
separatist guerrillas with police patroling only one part of
Lucane.
On Wednesday, ethnic Albanian fighteres fired five or six mortar
shells at police near Sveti Ilija, a hill position in the zone which
Yugoslav forces seized on Sunday, General Vladimir Lazarevic,
commander of Yugoslavia's third army said.
Also Wednesday clashes between police and Albanian guerrillas
were reported near Bujanovac and the nearby town of Veliki Trnovac.
No casualties were reported.
The guerrillas of the Liberation Army of Presevo, Bujanovac and
Medvedja (UCPMB) have gained control of several villages and key
areas in the buffer zone as part of a campaign to unite the area
with Kosovo.
Under the accord reached between Belgrade and NATO to end the
Kosovo war in June 1999, only lightly-armed Serbian police are
allowed to patrol the zone, making them vulnerable to attacks.
Yugoslav officials have indicated they will ask the United
Nations to change the accord to make the demilitarized zone
narrower.