By Linda D. Kozaryn
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON -- "We are the only police around," the American
sector commander in Kosovo told Pentagon reporters Aug. 5.

Army Brig. Gen. John Craddock, Task Force Falcon commander,
briefed the reporters by telephone. About 16 U.N. officials
are in the American sector preparing the way for U.N.
police, he said, but U.S. troops are serving as police in
the absence of a U.N. police force or trained, local police
forces.

Craddock said about 5,800 American soldiers are now in
Kosovo, and about 200 American aviators, based in
Macedonia, fly daily into the southern Yugoslav province.
American troops work with about 2,100 Greek, Polish and
Russian forces also assigned to the U.S. sector.

The task force is sized and equipped to take on the police
role, according to the commander. "These combat soldiers
are trained to do a lot," he said. "They are very agile and
adept at quick reaction. [They have] the ability to move
from Point A to Point B when something comes up hot or we
get an indication there's trouble." Military police are
doing a superb job, the general added, working long hours,
seven days a week.

The troops are equipped with tanks, Bradley fighting
vehicles and armored Humvees, as well as Black Hawk and
Apache helicopters, Craddock said. Apache gun cameras, he
noted, provide proof of illegal checkpoints and other
activities.

"That's pretty powerful stuff when you meet with the
leaders of either the Serb community or the [KLA], and you
tell them, 'Don't do it,' and they plead ignorance," he
said.

The international security force has had a calming effect
on the sector and is keeping violence from getting out of
hand, Craddock said. Still, he estimates, there are 12 to
15 homicides a week and four to five arson cases a day.
Arson generally involves vacant houses, Craddock said.

"Some of them are second torchings. In talking to the
soldiers out there on the streets,... every day, they tell me
that a house that's burned will continue to be burned until
the chimney falls. That is the yardstick [for measuring]
when the house is destroyed."

Assaults, robberies and other crimes are widespread. "There
are some acts of revenge in terms of hand grenades, some
ordnance that is thrown, homemade bombs, things like that,"
the commander said. "We find quite often stolen cars now
are starting to be reported because we've established
military police stations where the citizens can come in and
report these problems."

The task force has positioned troops based on the incidence
of crime and intimidation, Craddock said. The Serbs "want
to feel safe, so that means presence," he said. "We've got
to be out there where they are."

Craddock added more criminal investigators to the force to
deal with the violence, and "that's paying dividends," he
said. Investigators are starting to link information that
has resulted in several arrests. Military investigators
have solved a few kidnappings and raided unlawful detention
centers where Albanians were holding Serbs illegally.

Military officials are focused on mixed Serb-Albanian areas
where violence continues to erupt. In areas where Serb
residents have fled and only Albanians remain, the
situation has quieted down considerably, Craddock reported.
There are still daily, random burnings of houses vacated by
the Serbs, however. Fires are set by teen-agers "with
malicious intent," or by returning Albanian refugees
venting their desire for revenge.

In mixed areas, small numbers of Serbs continue to depart
each day. In Vitina, for example, a town which is about 70
percent Albanian and 30 percent Serb, a large number of
Serbs fled recently after tensions erupted into gunfire,
Craddock said. "We repeatedly went in and stationed
soldiers there to stop that, but the Serbs said the
intimidation factor was too great. They left."

In this case, however, the Serbs did not go to Serbia, he
noted. They went to an all-Serbian town only a few
kilometers away from their original homes. "In many cases,
the Serbs are not leaving the province; they are moving to
a more secure location in Serb-only villages and towns," he
said.

Albanian villages surround a Serb enclave of about 7,000
people within the American sector, Craddock said. Another
area within the sector, the Vitina-Gnijlane-Kamenica
Valley, has the highest concentration of Serbs remaining in
the province.

"Because we have the largest concentration of Serbs in the
province, we are doing a lot of different things to extend
that security blanket out among more communities," he said.
Task force officials are also working to convince the Serbs
that they need to work with the NATO-led forces and that
staying in Kosovo is in the best interests of all
concerned.

A peaceful future in the province will be assured through
"small first steps," Craddock said. If both sides stop
shooting and start talking, the "life ahead's going to be
better than the lives they've had."

In the meantime, the general concluded, "We haven't won
this thing, but we are making progress."

Craddock is slated to leave Kosovo in mid-August to become
commander of the 7th Army Training Center at Grafenwoehr,
Germany. His scheduled successor is Army Brig. Gen. Craig
Peterson, currently 1st Armored Division chief of staff at
Bad Kreuznach, Germany.