http://www.centraleurope.com/yugoslaviatoday/news.php3?id=267563&section=default

Guerrillas Attack in South Serbia

BUJANOVAC, Jan 25, 2001 -- (Reuters) Ethnic Albanians opened fire on
Yugoslav army positions on Wednesday just outside a buffer zone in tense
southern Serbia near Kosovo, Serb officials said.

A one-hour attack by fighters using automatic weapons was launched at 3:30
p.m. (1430 GMT) from houses on the outskirts of the village of Veliki Trnovac,
the government press center in the nearby town of Bujanovac said.

"The Yugoslav Army strongly responded to the attack," the press center said. It
said that because of the strength of the attack the police pulled back 150
meters
from a checkpoint on the Bujanovac-Veliki Trnovac road.

Beta news agency quoted Yugoslav Information Minister Zoran Zivkovic as
saying that two Albanians were injured in the clash and the army sustained no
injuries. The report could not be confirmed from other sources.

The area bordering Kosovo, which has a substantial Albanian population, has
seen an increase in fighting between Serb police and ethic Albanian guerrillas
over
the past year.

Serbian state television and a police officer in the area both said the
guerrillas had
mounted a separate attack on Wednesday on the village of Lucane from inside
the five km (three mile) wide Ground Safety Zone.

State television said the attack was still under way at 7 p.m. (1800 GMT) and
that the "terrorists" had used heavy machineguns and mortars. It said one house
was hit and two mortars each fell on a hill and inside the village.

The ethnic Albanian Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac,
known as the UCPMB, emerged about one year ago on the Serbian side of the
boundary, saying it was fighting police repression in the area.

Serb authorities have branded them terrorist separatists bent on uniting the
area
with internationally-run Kosovo.

The group has driven Serb police out of several villages in buffer zone, set up
after Yugoslav forces left Kosovo in June 1999 and NATO-led peacekeepers
moved into the province. Only lightly armed local police are allowed in the
zone.

Four Serb police were killed in clashes with the guerrillas in November.

The NATO-led KFOR peacekeeping force, which patrols the boundary, had no
immediate information on the reports of the latest attacks.