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PRISTINA, Yugoslavia, Aug 11 (AFP) - Blasts from rocket launchers and mortars rocked two Kosovo cities Tuesday, including the divided northern city of Kosovska Mitrovica, where fights between ethnic Albanians and Serbs immediately ensued, KFOR said here Wednesday.
Peacekeepers also arrested 78 people around Kosovo the same day for a variety of offences, KFOR spokesman Major Jan Joosten said.
Late Tuesday, four explosions were heard in Kosovska Mitrovica, where French soldiers had clashed over the weekend and Monday with ethnic Albanian protestors trying to cross a bridge into a Serbian district.
"A patrol found two 66-millimetre rocket launchers," Joosten said.
He added that "immediately after the explosions, several fights between Serbs and Albanians took place."
French peacekeepers closed the bridge to prevent a group of 200 ethnic Albanians crossing to the other side "where 200 Serbs were waiting."
The situation only calmed about three hours later, he said.
In the western town of Grabovac, nine mortar rounds were fired into the centre of the city.
"Two civilians were slightly injured and one house was hit," Joosten said.
Two combat helicopters and troops were dispatched to the area and conducted searches, he said.
Most of the arrests took place following a KFOR raid on a house in the US-patrolled southeastern city of Gniljane, the spokesman said.
Soldiers arrested the 60 occupants of the house, some of whom were wearing Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) uniforms -- which is prohibited outside of certain KFOR-supervised KLA compounds.
"During the search, 15 to 20 small calibre weapons, batons, clubs, knives, mattresses, uniforms and a surplus of military gear were found," Joosten said.
Fifty were later released but 10 continue to be detained in a US military base.
In the southern city of Prizren, another four people -- three men and a woman -- were arrested for attempted kidnapping and threatening a woman.
Ten ethnic Albanians were arrested in northern Kosovo for allegedly setting fire to properties. Another three ethnic Albanians were arrested in Obilic, near Pristina, for the same reason.
A woman and her four-year-old child were taken to a Russian KFOR checkpoint in the eastern town of Donje Korminjane after being shot.
"The mother died at the checkpoint and the child was evacuated to the Russian medical aid station," Joosten said. The child is in a stable condition and a search has started to find the child's relatives.
Finally, Joosten said, Russian troops guarding Pristina airport early Wednesday blew up a 2,000-pound bomb left over from NATO's air campaign in a controlled explosion.