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BELGRADE, Oct 7 - Attacks against Serbs in Kosovo have shown the need for Yugoslav troops to return to the province, an official of the Socialist party of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic was quoted as saying on Thursday.
One Serb was stoned to death and about 20 people, including French and Russian peacekeeping troops, were injured on Tuesday when Serbs and ethnic Albanians fought a running street battle in the divided Kosovo city of Mitrovica.
Rioting flared after a funeral to rebury about 20 ethnic Albanians, whose remains were exhumed from a mass grave last month, when thousands of mourners spotted Serbs on a main road.
Albanians stoned Serb cars and threw petrol bombs at a Russian armoured personnel carrier. Vehicles were set ablaze.
Zivorad Igic, head of the Socialist party's Kosovo branch and a member of its main board, said it was further proof that international peacekeepers could not halt violence in Kosovo.
In a report carried by the pro-government daily Politika, he said violence organised by ethnic Albanian "terrorists and separatists" had escalated since the arrival of the NATO-led KFOR peacekeeping force to the province.
Igic said there had also been an attack on the town hospital this week.
"All of this shows that it is high time for a contingent of the Yugoslav army and Serbian interior ministry to return to Kosovo as soon as possible, as stipulated by United Nations documents," Igic said.
Igic, who himself has been badly beaten in Kosovo, spends most of his time outside the province, which is now in practice an international protectorate following U.N. Security Council Resolution 1244, although in theory still a part of Serbia.
Tensions between the ethnic Albanian majority and Serbs still run high across Kosovo in the wake of years of Serb repression of Albanians and NATO's bombing campaign to drive Yugoslav and Serb forces out of the province.
Fearing revenge attacks, about 200,000 Serbs and other non-Albanians have left since the end of the 11-week NATO air war against Yugoslavia almost four months ago.
The commander of the Yugoslav army's Pristina corps has said some army troops would return to Kosovo by force if needed, but government officials have ruled out any forcible return.
NATO military commanders last month expressed concern over reports that Serb army, police or paramilitary forces had infiltrated Kosovo or remained there under cover after the June 20 deadline for quitting the territory.