PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (AP) - An explosion blew apart the home of a local leader in the eastern part of Kosovo, killing a woman and injuring two others as renewed violence erupted against Kosovo's Serbs, NATO reported Saturday.

Friday's blast in Kosovska Kamenica, about 20 miles southeast of Pristina, came just hours after NATO also reported that two other Serbs were killed about 30 miles southwest of Pristina while gathering firewood.

The three deaths Friday came on a day also marred by other incidents of anti-Serb violence. Two Serbs from Velika Hoca, a mile from the town of Orahovac, were shot in a forest while collecting firewood.

Separately, villagers threw stones and shattered the windows of a bus carrying Serbs between the Kosovo town of Gracanica and Nis, Serbia.

Attacks on Serbs in Kosovo have been carried out largely in revenge for acts committed during a war in which some 10,000 ethnic Albanians died. Forces loyal to Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic swept through hundreds of villages in an 18-month crackdown on ethnic Albanian militants before a NATO air war ended hostilities in June.

Friday's explosion occurred in the part of Kosovo patrolled by U.S. troops. Blagica Vasic, 42, was pulled out dead from under the rubble, Yugoslavia's state-run Tanjug news agency reported.

Her son, Igor, and husband, Slobodan, were found with severe injuries by NATO-led peacekeepers, Tanjug said. The independent Beta news agency reported that the explosive was planted on the side of the house next to ethnic Albanian neighbors.

Peacekeepers sealed off the site.

The explosion nearly led to another incident when local Serbs angrily demanded an immediate rescue operation. The tension was defused when the peacekeepers allowed the Serbs to take part in the search for victims.

Also Friday in Gracanica, dozens of people rioted outside a U.N. police station, winning the release of a man detained for assaulting an American police officer. NATO peacekeepers intervened and the crowd broke up after the man was released on his own recognizance.

The man had been wearing a Yugoslav Army uniform, which is forbidden in the U.N.-controlled province. When the American tried to arrest the man, a brawl ensued. The officer, whose name was not immediately released by U.N. police, suffered broken ribs.
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