Worry About Attacks on Peacekeepers

 
By TOM COHEN Associated Press Writer

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (AP) - Violent flare-ups involving NATO troops injured a Russian soldier and an ethnic Albanian and prompted a peacekeeping spokesman to express concern today about attacks on Kosovo peacekeepers.

The violence overnight included three attacks on Russian soldiers at checkpoints in eastern Kosovo, an exchange of gunfire with people trying to attack a Serb home in the southern city of Urosevac, and three cases in which shots were fired at other NATO checkpoints or patrols.

One Russian soldier was wounded in the thigh, and an ethnic Albanian was seriously injured in the incidents. NATO forces detained a total of 15 suspects, said Maj. Jan Joosten, spokesman for the peacekeeping force in Pristina known as KFOR.

``KFOR is very concerned about the current attacks against its soldiers,'' Joosten said, adding that the rules of engagement allow the foreign troops a robust response to any attack.

The violence came amid a series of attacks on minority Serbs by ethnic Albanians. More than 160,000 Serbs have fled the province as a result, and Belgrade has protested that the NATO forces are failing to protect both sides equally.

Joosten said the security situation in Kosovo was generally better, but he acknowledged the overnight violence marked an increase in incidents involving peacekeepers.

In the incidents listed by Joosten:

- Unidentified assailants attacked three Russian checkpoints in Koretin and Kosovska Kamenica, driving a vehicle into one of them and firing shots at two others. Ethnic Albanians in the eastern region have been protesting the presence of Russian troops, whom they consider to be sympathetic toward the Serbs.

- Troops protecting a Serb house in Urosevac exchanged fire with attackers in a white station wagon, and a U.S. Apache helicopter followed the vehicle. One wounded man was arrested at Pristina hospital, where the car was found.

- Shots were fired above a checkpoint in southern Kosovo near Prizren, and an ethnic Albanian was arrested after weapons were found in his car. NATO has forbidden Kosovars from being armed.

- A patrol in Pec, in western Kosovo, came under fire and one suspect was arrested.

- Shots were fired near a checkpoint in the southwestern Djakovica area, and the search of a nearby house turned up an assault rifle and a grenade. The occupant was arrested.

The violence is considered a threat to the ability of NATO and the United Nations to set up a civil administration in Kosovo to run the territory until elections can be held.

Nadia Younes, the U.N. spokeswoman in Pristina, said today that a transition council of ethnic Albanians and Serbs set up to form new governing structures would probably hold its second meeting sometime in mid-August.

She said ethnic Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova and Hashim Thaci, the former guerrilla leader who heads an interim administration in Kosovo, had met with U.N. mission chief Bernard Kouchner for more than three hours this week.

Both Rugova and Thaci indicated they would join the council meeting, Younes said. Rugova's party boycotted the first meeting last month, complaining it lacked proper representation.

Meanwhile, the U.N. refugee agency said today it resolved a dispute with Macedonian authorities over a $2,450 inspection fee charged trucks transporting humanitarian aid to Kosovo. The U.N. had held back hundreds of trucks in Macedonia's capital, Skopje, while trying to resolve the issue this week, spokesman Ron Redmond said.