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PRISTINA, Kosovo -- Three gunmen opened fire on a NATO peacekeeping patrol in southwestern Kosovo early Sunday, striking one soldier who was saved from injury by his body armor.
"A search operation is ongoing in order to capture the assailants," officials of the KFOR peacekeeping mission announced Sunday. The German troops were patrolling in the village of Zjum at the time, said KFOR spokesman Maj. Roland Lavoie.
The clash came as the province's U.N. administrator vowed to end the wave of reprisals that has rippled through Kosovo since its Albanian population began to return in June.
In northern Kosovo, French forces patrolling the divided city of Kosovska Mitrovica said two Serbs were wounded after they stopped a car of Albanians that crossed into the Serb-dominated northern district of the city.
One Albanian opened fired with a semi-automatic rifle, wounding the men, KFOR said. He was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder.
KFOR contends that violence against the Serb population -- which has been rapidly dwindling since the forced withdrawal of Yugoslav troops in June -- has diminished. But the U.N. civilian chief in Kosovo told an Athens newspaper that his "patience has run out" with militant Albanians seeking revenge on the Serbs for the "ethnic cleansing" that prompted NATO's air war against Yugoslavia.
"In the future, I will not allow the homes of 10 or 14 Serbs to be burned every night," said Bernard Kouchner, "even if that means confrontation with the KLA."
The KLA -- the Kosovo Liberation Army, which fought the Serb-led Yugoslav authorities for more than a year -- has denied any responsibility for the attacks on Serbs since the end of the war June 11.
But the violence continues: The Serbian Orthodox Church said that more than 40 of its churches -- including some 13th- and 14th-century structures -- have been destroyed by ethnic Albanians.
"It is especially worrying that these things are taking place in front of KFOR," said Bishop Atanasije Rakita, a church spokesman.