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Day Two: The airstrikes persist
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (AP) -- NATO pounded Yugoslavia for a second night Thursday, following through on a pledge to systematically destroy President Slobodan Milosevic's military forces unless he accepts peace in Kosovo. Bombs rained down on Kosovo's capital of Pristina shortly after dark. The sky lit up with bright flashes when three heavy blasts were heard from the direction of an army base next to the airport. Explosions were also heard north of Belgrade, in northern Kosovo and in Serbia and Montenegro, the two republics that make up Yugoslavia. "We're going to systematically and progressively attack, disrupt, degrade, devastate and ultimately -- unless President Milosevic complies with the demands of the international community -- we're going to destroy these forces and their facilities and support," said U.S. Gen. Wesley Clark, supreme commander of allied forces in Europe. But there was no hint the assault was causing Milosevic to rethink his refusal to end his offensive against ethnic Albanian separatists in Kosovo or accept a plan calling for 28,000 NATO troops to enforce the peace. His aides scorned the airstrikes as "a crime against the people" of Yugoslavia, his troops reportedly kept burning villages and kidnapping people in Kosovo, and Serbia ordered all foreign reporters to leave. Most journalists heeded the warning. Yugoslavia also announced it was cutting diplomatic ties with the United States, Britain, France and Germany for participating in the airstrikes, Serbian TV reported. But Britain and the United States said they had received no formal notice of ties being broken. France would neither confirm nor deny the report and Germany had no immediate comment. More than 2,000 people have been killed and at least 400,000 forced to flee their homes in a year of fighting between Yugoslav troops and ethnic Albanian rebels in Kosovo, a province in Serbia. The ethnic Albanians have already signed the U.S.-backed peace plan. A devastating first round of airstrikes Wednesday reportedly killed at least 11 people, injured dozens and delivered serious blows to Yugoslavia's military infrastructure. Air raid sirens sounded throughout Yugoslavia again Thursday after dozens of NATO warplanes took off from bases in Italy and four warships in the Adriatic Sea launched Tomahawk cruise missiles on the second day of the offensive. NATO commanders say the barrage will go on until Milosevic capitulates -- and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said diplomatic channels were always open. "He knows how to get in touch with us," she said in Washington. Two missiles struck Thursday near the central Serbian city of Nis. The official Tanjug news agency reported two explosions in the center of the northern Kosovo town of Kosovska Mitrovica and local media in Belgrade reported several explosions just north of the capital. Six locations -- including army bases, an airport and radar facilities -- were hit in Montenegro. The Yugoslav leadership assailed the attacks by the 19-nation NATO alliance as "a grave crime against the people of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia." "This will never be forgotten and the aggressors will never be forgiven," Ivica Dacic, a spokesman for Milosevic's Serbian Socialist Party, said in Belgrade. NATO began the attack Wednesday night with the launch of cruise missiles from American B-52s in the air and ships in the Adriatic, many of them aimed at Yugoslavia's air defense system. Other targets, NATO sources said, included ammunition dumps, radar installations, artillery, fiber optic cables and command and control centers. The Yugoslav army acknowledged that more than 50 targets were hit. Javier Solana, NATO's secretary-general, said from alliance headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, that initial reports indicated the first phase was a success. The Serbian health minister, Dr. Leposava Milecevic, told CNN that 10 civilians and one soldier were killed in the Wednesday night attack and 60 people were wounded. An official army statement listed 10 people dead and 38 wounded, with one soldier missing. Clark said it was impossible to know precisely what had happened on the ground in target areas, saying NATO forces were taking "every possible measure" to minimize the threat of civilian casualties. He said allied aircraft "destroyed" three Yugoslav jet fighters in the first round of air combat -- two shot down by U.S. F-16s and the other by a Dutch F-16. Even before the attack Thursday, the Yugoslav capital of Belgrade was tense, with schools, airports and most shops closed. In a sign of rising hostility toward Westerners, the Beta news agency in Belgrade reported that assailants smashed windows at the cultural centers of France, Germany and the United States. Many European and Asian leaders backed the airstrikes, but China and Russia demanded an immediate end to the allied assault. In Kosovo, where the exodus of journalists made it virtually impossible to verify claims, there were reports of rising violence, much of it targeting civilians. The state news agency Tanjug reported that ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army rebels "encouraged and supported by last night's criminal activities" attacked government forces in several areas. However, rebel commander Ramush Hajredinaj told the Associated Press by telephone that Serbian police and Yugoslav soldiers near the town of Vucitirn were pushing civilians from village to village. He also said Serbs had blocked roads in the northern Drenica area, trapping civilians in villages there. He said Serbs were burning houses in the southern city of Pec and kidnapping people. "The situation is very catastrophic ... no one can go inside, no aid groups," he said. Anti-NATO sentiment erupted Thursday in neighboring Macedonia, where more than 2,000 demonstrators threw stones, broke windows and hurled gasoline bombs at the U.S. Embassy in the capital of Skopje. Several cars were burned as protesters chanting, "NATO out of
Macedonia" tried to storm the building. Riot police drove them off
with tear gas.
© 1999 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
The information contained in the AP News report may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority
of the Associated Press. |
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