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NATO arrests 13 suspected ethnic Albanian insurgents

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December 21, 2000 

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia--(UNB/AP) - Peacekeepers arrested 13 Kosovo Albanians early Wednesday transporting machine guns and other advanced weaponry and headed toward the southern Serbian zone just outside Kosovo where ethnic Albanian militants are positioning themselves for battle.

A NATO statement said the 13 males were heading out of Kosovo, toward the boundary with Serbia in four cars and two tractors, when arrested in Draghibac Mala 60 kilometers (35 miles) southeast of Pristina. They did not resist arrest and will be sent to the American Camp Bondsteel, for questioning.

The confiscated weapons included seven machine guns, five AK47 assault rifles, seven long-barreled rifles, 30 rocket propelled grenade warheads, two launchers for the warheads, 50 hand grenades, two anti tank mines, two pistols, four rocket launchers and warheads, a large quantity of assorted ammunition and a number of uniforms and communication devices.

The arrests were made by a NATO reserve unit dispatched two days ago to the volatile area of Kosovo bordering southern Serbia, where ethnic Albanian guerrillas have been sporadically engaging Serb forces.

'We need to ensure that arms, ammunition, explosives and guns don't get across the boundary," Press Association of Britain quoted a NATO spokesman, Lt. Col. Stephen Kilpatrick, as saying. "Clearly, they are moving across the boundary in order to carry out attacks on Serbs."

Last month, the rebels killed four Yugoslav policemen and seized several positions in the five-kilometer (three-mile)-wide buffer zone along the Yugoslav side of the boundary. The zone was established in June 1999 to prevent Belgrade's forces from threatening the peacekeepers who took over Kosovo after the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia.

Yugoslav forces cannot use heavy weapons in the zone, and so the ethnic Albanians have been operating in the area with impunity. They are trying to drive Yugoslav forces from the area, which has an ethnic Albanian majority but is not part of Kosovo.

Kosovo itself remains tense. Yugoslavia's Beta news agency reported that a U.N. police station in Serb-dominated Zubin Potok was demolished with hand-grenades and machine-gun bursts, and a police car was blown up late Tuesday, prompting U.N. police and NATO troops to blockade the village.

In New York, the U.N. Security Council called Tuesday for ethnic Albanian "extremists" from Kosovo to withdraw immediately from the boundary zone dividing the province from the rest of Serbia and disband.

The council adopted a presidential statement by consensus at the conclusion of an open meeting at which Yugoslav Foreign Minister Goran Svilanovic said he expected the council to take immediate action to remove the rebels from the region.

The new Yugoslav government is committed to dialogue and to finding a peaceful solution to the problem, but it is under pressure from extremist forces to resort to military force to restore security in the so-called Ground Safety Zone, he said.

Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica called earlier Tuesday for changes in the Kosovo peace agreement that would allow Yugoslav forces to operate closer to the boundary.