U.S. Marines Put On Show Of Force In Kosovo
By Jeffrey Heller
GNJILANE, Serbia (Reuters) - U.S. Marine forces answering to radio call
signs like ``predator,''
``bulldog'' and ``killer'' fanned out across their peacekeeping zone
in Kosovo Friday intent on
showing friend and foe alike who's the boss.
``We've basically put a message out in the area: there's not going to
be anybody carrying arms,'' Lt.
Doug Hasseltine, of Metairie, Louisiana, said as the 26th Marine Expeditionary
Unit dug in at its new
field headquarters.
Marine officers at the base, midway between Macedonia and the Kosovo
capital Pristina, chafed at
the suggestion NATO had assigned the U.S. troops a rearguard role in
a relatively quiet zone and let
British and French soldiers steal the limelight.
``There's nothing rear about this. On the two nights we have been here
(at the new field base), we've
heard gunshots,'' one officer said.
Since arriving in Kosovo earlier this week in the wake of other NATO
troops, the Marines have
been primed for action but have not fired a shot in anger or been attacked.
In a muddy field at the encampment, a marine ordnance expert pointed
at a pile of 100 AK-47
assault rifles, assorted grenades and explosives his unit has collected
from the Kosovo Liberation
Army, whose guerrillas welcomed the NATO thrust.
``This stuff here has got to be just a drop in the bucket of what's
got to be out there,'' said Sgt.
Richard Russ of Ocala, Florida.
``It doesn't matter who they are, they are going to give them up,''
Russ said about any ethnic
Albanian or Serb found carrying a weapon.
U.S. troops set up roadblocks every few miles, using handheld metal
detectors to check motorists
for hidden weapons.
One KLA commander has already been ``nabbed and tagged'' -- arrested
and restrained with
plastic handcuffs -- after refusing a Marine order to instruct his
men to hand over their weapons.
``We're here to lay down the law,'' Hasseltine said.
A case in point was a tense incident Friday in the Gnjilane, the largest
town in the Marine-controlled
area, when Marines thought they had spotted a gunman.
``Sniper, sniper,'' one Marine shouted, touching off a well rehearsed urban warfare drill.
Surrounding a residential building, about six Marines in full battle
gear broke a shop window on the
ground floor and stormed in, guns at the ready. They found an unarmed
Serb family.
Marines in Humvee armored vehicles, some with anti-tank missile launchers
mounted on top, have
taken over Gnjilane's post office, fire station, hospital and tobacco
factory from KLA guerrillas who
moved in after Serb forces pulled out.
``Look, I want to thank you for securing this area,'' Capt. Dan Sullivan
of Islip, New York, backed
by heavy armor and a platoon of riflemen, told a KLA commander at the
fire station. ''But now
we're here and your forces are not needed.''
At a nearby village, a Marine foot patrol, supported by an armored Bradley
fighting vehicle, walked
down the road in two columns as barefoot children flashed them a V-sign.
``We're getting face time with the villagers,'' Hasseltine said.
