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KOSOVSKA MITROVICA, Yugoslavia (AP) A rocket-propelled grenade killed an ethnic Albanian in northern Kosovo on Sunday, the latest link in a chain of violence bedeviling international efforts to establish normality in the province.
Officials of the NATO-led Kosovo peacekeeping force said the grenade smashed through the windshield of a truck driven by the victim, killing him and wounding a woman riding in the cab.
There were no further details on the killing north of Kosovska Mitrovica, an ethnically tense northern town that has been the scene of repeated confrontations between Kosovo Serbs and Albanians as well as several abductions and shootings.
Also Sunday, U.S. lawmakers said peacekeepers might be able to compromise with former rebels who don't want to disband their army.
The ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army faces a late September deadline to demilitarize. Leaders of the former guerrilla force agreed to the deadline earlier this year. But there is strong resistance among some senior KLA members, who want to remain the province's de facto army while they wait for their ultimate goal complete independence from Serbia.
In Washington, Sen. Joe Biden said he believed the KLA would honor its demilitarization commitments under a ''face-saving device'' creation of a service for former KLA soldiers under international control that will deal with civil emergencies. Biden, D-Del., visited Kosovo last week.
Sen. Mitch McConnell, appearing with Biden on the ''Fox News Sunday'' show, said that solution should eliminate KLA concerns about having to completely disband.
''They need to have some kind of security force,'' said McConnell, R-Ky. ''We can help train that force and should do that.''
Ethnic tensions between Serbs and ethnic Albanians remain high after the deaths of an estimated 10,000 civilians in an 18-month crackdown launched by Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to crush the ethnic Albanian KLA.
The crackdown ended after a 78-day NATO bombing campaign that led to a peace agreement, the departure of Yugoslav forces, and the arrival of the NATO-led peacekeeping force. But violence remains high: Ethnic Albanians have been exacting revenge on Serbs and Gypsies, whom they consider Serb allies, and Serbs have been retaliating.
Most of Kosovo's prewar population of 200,000 Serbs have fled since June, when Milosevic's forces withdrew.
The continuing violence has led to accusations by Milosevic's government that both NATO and the United Nations are failing to protect the diminishing Serb minority.
Kosovo Serb leader Momcilo Trajkovic demanded Sunday that Kosovo's U.N. high representative, Bernard Kouchner, be replaced because ''his conduct and decisions excluded the Serbs side from any form of cooperation and joint work.''
In comments published Sunday by the Belgrade daily Blic, Trajkovic said his efforts to cooperate with the United Nations and NATO to ensure safety for Kosovo's Serbs have been frustrated. He said he might withdraw from a U.N.-established Serb-Albanian council meant to bridge misunderstandings and help administer the province.