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PRISTINA, Yugoslavia -- Kosovo Serbs and ethnic Albanians clashed in the tense town of Kosovska Mitrovica, injuring 15 French soldiers and police trying to separate them, NATO officials said today. One ethnic Albanian was reported dead and at least nine others were injured.
NATO spokesmen said the clash occurred late Thursday, drawing in French peacekeepers and police who tried to separate the two ethnic groups. Of the 15 French injured, five soldiers were wounded by an exploding hand grenade, and the others by stones thrown by the two sides, said Maj. Ole Irgens, a spokesman for the peacekeepers. He said no injuries were critical.
Several ethnic Albanian residents of Kosovska Mitrovica, who spoke by phone on condition of anonymity, said one ethnic Albanian was shot to death.
NATO officials said those reports were being checked. One spokesman, Maj. Roger LaVoie, said it was possible that several Serbs were injured as well.
At least nine ethnic Albanians were shot and wounded. They were in Pristina's hospital Friday. One man with a chest wound said French soldiers wounded him.
A French spokesman in Kosovska Mitrovica, Capt. Bernard Bonneau, did not comment directly on that claim but said: "It was impossible to avoid intervention because the two sides were close to each other and we wanted to prevent further escalation."
He said he could neither confirm nor deny the reported death, pending continuing investigations.
LaVoie said seven French peacekeepers were injured Thursday while demining an area south of Kosovska Mitrovica, apparently after one of the mines blew up. None of the injuries were life-threatening, he said.
Kosovska Mitrovica has figured prominently over the past months as an example of the ethnic hatreds blocking international efforts to establish normality in Kosovo in the wake of a Serb crackdown and prolonged NATO bombing of Yugoslavia to force a pullout of Serb troops.
The town is split into Serb and ethnic Albanian sectors, divided by the Ibar River. Hundreds of ethnic Albanians have demonstrated sporadically over the past two months, demanding the right to return to their homes in the Serb sector. French peacekeepers patrolling the region have prevented most from doing so, fearing bloodshed otherwise.
Like previous confrontations, Thursday's clash began with crowds of Serbs and ethnic Albanians forming on the two ends of the bridge over the Ibar. The violence was sure to fuel ethnic tensions and lead to further retributory bloodshed.
Minority Serbs still in Kosovo blame the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army for the rash of attacks on their ethnic group since Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic accepted Western peace terms and pulled his troops out of the province after NATO bombing ended in June.
On Thursday, NATO announced that eight KLA members had been arrested in the western city of Djakovica in an apartment where peacekeepers found a machine gun, ammunition, 30 cluster bombs, two 85-mm anti-tank weapons and several anti-personnel mines.
KLA leaders deny wrongdoing, as they push to establish authority in a Kosovo administered by the United Nations and policed by NATO, so as to be in a dominant position once the international presence ends.
The KLA's military leader, Gen. Agim Ceku said Thursday his organization, which is to disarm and disband by Sept. 19, had won the right not only to transform into a civilian corps but to play a role in all other governmental institutions in Kosovo, including a defense unit of at least 5,000 members to respond to natural disasters and "defend (ethnic Albanians) from aggression."
NATO and U.N. officials confirmed that the KLA will form the basis of a uniformed corps, although its mission and tasks have not been finalized. Russia, however, has expressed opposition to any plan that falls short of the complete disarmament and disbanding of the former rebel army.
Repeating Russian criticism, Deputy Foreign Minister Aleksandar Avdeyev said in Macedonia on Friday that U.N. plans for the KLA will result in "a conservation of . . . this military formation."
Meanwhile, a military police official with the NATO-led peacekeeping force said today that six of 11 bodies discovered in July near the eastern Kosovo village of Ugljare were those of Serbs.
The other five bodies remain unidentified and their ethnicity or identity is unlikely to be established, said Col. Ian Mitchell. He said the victims were shot, stabbed or clubbed at different places and times -- but all after the peacekeepers arrived in June -- and then brought to the grave site.
Mitchell said one ethnic Albanian was in custody after confessing to kidnapping three Serbs whose bodies were found at the site. He gave no further details.