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PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (AP) - Although NATO insists the Kosovo Liberation Army handed in its weapons before it officially disbanded last month, peacekeepers suspect both Serbs and ethnic Albanians maintain stocks of weapons, hampering efforts to restore peace in the troubled province.
The NATO-led peacekeeping command has been careful to avoid any public suggestion that the KLA, which the United Nations is transforming into a civilian organization, may have held back significant stocks of weapons. And neither have the peacekeepers publicly accused Serbs in the province of maintaining a stockpile of arms.
But weapons remain a widespread problem. During rallies in the Serb-controlled part of the town of Kosovska Mitrovica, athletic men can be seen wandering through the crowd with hand-held radios and sidearms bulging discreetly beneath their jackets.
Hardly a night goes by in this overwhelmingly ethnic Albanian provincial capital without the occasional crackle of rifle fire. Hardly a day goes by without NATO reporting weapons seizures and arrests.
No figures are available on how many weapons have been seized since NATO-led peacekeepers arrived June 12 or since the KLA was officially disbanded Sept. 21.
However, a spokesman for the peacekeeping command, Maj. Roland Lavoie, estimates that troops have been confiscating illegal weapons, ammunition and explosives at the rate of 100 per day.
He said he had no figures on how many were taken from ethnic Albanians and how many from Serbs. Lavoie said it often takes weeks to trace weapons and determine whether they came from former KLA fighters or may have been left behind by departing Yugoslav forces so Serbs could defend themselves.
Days before the KLA was supposed to demilitarize, NATO officials said the former rebels had turned in more than 10,000 weapons and declared them in compliance with the disarmament portion of the agreement.
But in a statement Sunday, the peacekeeping command said Italian troops searched a former KLA building in Djakovica on Saturday and seized 10 rifle grenades, a 30mm gun, an anti-tank rocket, three grenades, three rifles and other weapons.
``An investigation is under way to determine if illegal activities were conducted from this location,'' a NATO statement said. Six people were arrested Saturday in Orahovac and Prizren after German troops found two submachine guns, five Kalashnikov rifles, 12 hand grenades, seven pistols and three rifle grenades in two separate raids.
NATO did not say whether those arrested were Serbs or ethnic Albanians.
Under U.N. regulations, it is illegal to hold any weapon without written permission from the NATO-led Kosovo Force, KFOR, or U.N. civilian police. Permits issued by the Yugoslav government are not valid.
In one example of the province's volatility, British troops searched a Serb home on Sept. 26, in the ethnically mixed town of Kosovo Polje, and seized four Kalashnikov rifles, four pistols, five rocket-propelled grenades and 100 rounds of ammunition.
Nearly 100 Serbs blocked the road there for a couple of hours, insisting they should be allowed to keep weapons to protect themselves from their ethnic Albanian neighbors. Two days later, unknown assailants fired two rocket-propelled grenades into a Serb market in the same neighborhood, killing three people and injuring about 40.
``You can go to almost any Serb house here and find weapons,'' said one British officer in Kosovo Polje, who spoke on condition he not be named. ``They're well-armed.''
Among ethnic Albanians in rural areas, ownership of a firearm is a sign of manhood. In the early days of the KLA, many ethnic Albanian fighters traveled to neighboring Albania, bought their own rifles on the black market and returned to Kosovo to fight.
Many of them consider those weapons as their personal property. NATO troops suspect many of these weapons, mostly Kalashnikov rifles, are hidden away.
Since the demilitarization deadline, however, NATO troops keeping finding weapons of a type and quantity that indicate the problem goes beyond a few ex-rebel farmers storing away a favorite Kalashnikov.
On Tuesday, French troops near the central town of Srbica, which the ethnic Albanians call Skenderaj, stopped two ethnic Albanian-driven vehicles and confiscated 16 anti-personnel mines, 38 anti-tank mines, eight anti-tank rockets, four launchers and detonators.
The two drivers were arrested. French military officials declined to discuss the case in detail.