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DONJA BUDRIGA, Yugoslavia (AP) - Explosions rocked the American sector of eastern Kosovo, killing two people and injuring four, NATO said today. A private Serb news agency described the incident as a mortar attack on two Serb villages.
Eight to 10 blasts occurred Tuesday evening near Donja Budriga village, according to Pfc. William Patterson of the U.S. military press office in eastern Kosovo. He did not say whether the victims were Serbs or ethnic Albanians.
Patterson said one critically injured victim was taken to an American military clinic.
Early today, several mortars were fired at another Serb village in the area but caused no casualties, U.S. soldiers said. They said American investigators found empty casings from Chinese-manufactured 81-mm mortars nearby.
Chinese-manufactured weapons were favored by the Kosovo Liberation Army during the ethnic fighting against Serb-led Yugoslav forces.
In Belgrade, the Yugoslav capital, the private Beta news agency quoted local residents as saying 15 mortars were fired Tuesday evening at the adjacent Serb villages of Donja Budriga and Partesa.
Col. Steve Hicks, however, said at least seven projectiles, either large mortars or small artillery, exploded in Donja Budriga. He said American troops on patrol saw the flashes from the weapons firing from an ethnic Albanian settlement and a car speeding away.
The vehicle got away. One elderly woman and an elderly man - both Serbs - were killed, he said. Hicks said the shelling was the first in the area in about two weeks. ``Everything we've seen so far has been against purely Serb villages,'' Hicks said.
``I was in bed last night when I heard a big bang and the house started to shake,'' said Zivka Sentic, whose home was damaged by the blasts.
The attack occurred one day after Russian soldiers patrolling the American sector shot and killed three Serbs after they disregarded orders to stop beating two wounded Albanians and instead opened fire on the peacekeepers.
Those incidents have raised tensions in Kosovo in the runup to the scheduled Sept. 19 demilitarization of the KLA, whose attacks against Serbs triggered the 18-month crackdown that led to the 78-day NATO bombing campaign.
NATO stopped its air bombardment on Yugoslavia after President Slobodan Milosevic accepted a U.N.-sanctioned peace agreement, which provided for 40,000 NATO and Russian peacekeepers to maintain security in Kosovo.
In Belgrade, a Yugoslav army general who served in Kosovo threatened to recapture the province by force if peacekeepers fail to protect non-Albanian civilians.
``The refusal of the international community to fulfill its obligations according to the (peace) agreement implies that we would have to retake our territory by force,'' Col. Gen. Vladimir Lazarevic told the independent weekly Nedeljni Telegraf. ``This state has a right to protect its legal territory and people.''
As tensions in the province increase, Russia is stepping up its criticism of NATO's role in Kosovo. In a statement Tuesday to the ITAR-Tass news agency, Col. Gen. Leonid Ivashov accused NATO of failing ``to ensure the security of people of different nationalities residing in the territory, primarily non-Albanians.''
Ivashov said Moscow was dissatisfied with the pace of disarming the KLA. The United States, however, has offered the KLA a new role as the ``Kosovo Corps,'' a lightly armed force that would respond to natural disasters and assist in security missions.
Russia's complaints are expected to figure in talks in Moscow next week between Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev and U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen.
International attempts to bring peace to Kosovo have been confounded by a wave of violence by ethnic Albanians seeking revenge against Serbs for the 18-month crackdown that left 10,000 dead and hundreds of thousands displaced before NATO intervened.
Most of the more than 200,000 Kosovo Serbs have fled since NATO troops replaced Serb forces in the province.