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GORNJA BRINJICA, Yugoslavia, Aug 12 (AFP) - British troops and ethnic Albanians clashed Thursday in the village of Gornja Brinjica, four kilometres (three miles) north of the Kosovo capital of Pristina, KFOR peacekeepers and local residents told AFP.
The incident happened just before dawn, when two British patrols thwarted a group of attackers who opened fire on the predominantly Serb village with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades, British soldiers here said.
One of the patrols arrested four unarmed suspects leaving the village on foot, while the other patrol, in a Warrior armoured reconnaisance vehicle, began a pursuit of two cars seen racing away at high speed.
The three occupants in the rear car starting shooting at the Warrior, prompting the British commander to fire back.
The exchange continued along the road as the vehicles reached speeds "of up to 70 kilometres (43 miles) an hour," before the two cars drove along a narrow track which ended at a farmhouse.
The seven occupants of the two cars made to flee. British soldiers arrested four of them, including two who were wounded.
The other three, one of whom was also injured, managed to escape in two directions.
A search was launched, involving two helicopters, a tracker dog and 20 British and Canadian soldiers, an army spokesman here, Major Ian Seraph, said.
The two wounded men were being treated in hospital and military police are questioning all those involved, he added.
"British military police are securing the scene. There are people who have fled the scene who we are looking for," said Seraph.
At the farmhouse where the chase came to an end, investigators could be seen examining the two cars.
The Warrior stood at the beginning of the narrow track leading to the property. Its side was muddy from where it rolled as the commander tried to bring it across a frail wooden bridge.
Another spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Robin Hodges, said no British soldiers had been hurt in the incident.
He said the British patrols had been near the village because of a kidnapping of a local Tuesday and threats the Serb residents had received to leave their homes within 20 days.
The Serbs had also been told there would be an attack within 24 hours.
They had passed this information on to British soldiers, who had been "prepared for the attack," Hodges said.
A Serb resident, Ljuba Bojkovic, said the Serbs had left the village when the attack started.
A local ethnic Albanian man, Fehmi Kupina, said Gornja Brinjica had been an ethnically mixed village until Albanians had been driven from their homes after Belgrade launched its sweep in Kosovo in March. It was now predominantly Serb, he said.
Kosovo has been dogged by unrest between rival Serbs and ethnic Albanians since the NATO-led peacekeepers deployed in the province in June.
Thousands of Serbs have fled their homes, and dozens have been killed, many of them in revenge attacks by ethnic Albanians, although the full toll remains unclear.
On Wednesday, the UN refugee agency UNHCR said "thugs" had virtually rid Pristina of its Serb minority.
It said there were now only an estimated 1,000-to-2,000 Serbs left in the city.
That compares with an estimated population of around 40,000 before the NATO-Yugoslavia conflict, according to Serbian media, he said, and 27,000 according to a 1991 census.
Tactics included intimidation, forced expulsions from apartments, beatings and murders, causing Serbs to live in constant fear, the agency said.
KFOR peacekeepers and some UN officials in Pristina have privately said they suspect the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), or renegade groups of the ethnic Albanian separatist movement to be behind the violence against Serb civilians.