Serbs Shell Albanian Rebels in Kosovo City

Brushing aside international calls for a cease-fire, Serbian forces pounded ethnic Albanian rebels Saturday outside Kosovo’s second-largest city. Hundreds of terrified civilians fled over twisting mountain roads to escape the fighting.

Serbian troops began shelling the town of Lodja, just outside this western Kosovo city, about dawn Saturday. The attacks continued until midday.

The ethnic Albanian Kosovo Information Center said that at the height of the barrage, shells were falling at the rate of about one a minute, but the village remained in the hands of the secessionist Kosovo Liberation Army.

Lodja is a stronghold of the KLA, which is battling for independence for Kosovo province from Serbia, a part of Yugoslavia.

The shelling raised alarm among Pec’s 120,000 people, most of them ethnic Albanians. Dozens of cars packed with families and their belongings headed north over a winding mountain road toward nearby Montenegro.

An independent radio station in the Yugoslav capital of Belgrade said Serbian forces launched the attack in an attempt to retrieve the bodies of two Serbian police officers killed in fighting around Lodja three days ago.

The fighting raged despite a demand by the United States, Russia, Britain, France, Germany and Italy for an immediate cease-fire followed by peace talks. France and Britain also have said they would introduce a resolution in the U.N. Security Council threatening new measures against the warring sides if they do not halt the fighting.

But Russia refused on Saturday to drop its opposition to possible military intervention in Kosovo, where separatist guerrillas have insisted that they will not allow ethnic Albanian politicians to represent them in any peace talks.