NATO Shows Unity as Air Campaign Widens

The 19 foreign ministers of NATO vowed after an emergency session Monday to intensify the air war against Yugoslav military forces until President Slobodan Milosevic gives in, as an allied airstrike on a strategic Serbian railway bridge left a passenger train in flames with heavy civilian casualties.

NATO ministers, meeting for the first time since the air attacks began 20 days ago, discussed deploying combat ground troops in an attempt to force a rollback of Milosevic’s military from the embattled province of Kosovo, but reached no decision.

Officials said NATO’s top policy-making group acknowledged, however, that armed “peacekeeping” ground troops may be sent to Kosovo without a formal cease-fire if the bombing campaign damages the Yugoslav army so badly that it is unable to fight back.

Sending troops to keep the peace before a formal cease-fire would appear to blur the definition of the “permissive” environment that NATO long has held would be necessary before peacekeeping troops might be sent.

President Clinton vowed to keep the air campaign going. “We are determined to continue on with this mission, and we will prevail,” he told U.S. Air Force bomber crews at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana.

Clinton said the goal is to prevent a wider conflict. “We would like to nip this conflict in the bud before it destabilizes all of Europe,” he said.

At their meeting in Brussels, the NATO ministers ordered allied military commanders to devise ways to deliver relief supplies to at least 230,000 ethnic Albanians who have been driven from their homes in the “ethnic cleansing” of Kosovo, but who have remained in the war-torn province.

Despite overcast skies, waves of NATO warplanes roared across Yugoslavia’s heartland, pounding a major oil refinery, fuel depots, a military airfield, a heavy machinery plant and the factory that makes Yugo cars, which NATO said was housed in a complex that also makes military vehicles and other weapons.

Daytime airstrikes in Kosovo, the southernmost province of Serbia, the dominant republic in Yugoslavia, were the heaviest since the NATO campaign began March 24. At least six powerful explosions rocked Pristina, the provincial capital, including one that knocked out the main power station. Early today, more explosions shook a fuel storage depot in Pristina, setting off heavy explosions and a huge fire that lighted up the sky. In other developments Monday:

* Clinton consulted on Kosovo with House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), Senate Republican leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.), House Republican leader Dick Armey (R-Texas), House Democratic leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) and Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.). He will meet today with a bipartisan group of 50 to 60 lawmakers as Congress resumes after a two-week recess.

* ABC News reported that allied officials suspect someone within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization tipped off Serbian authorities to several specific targets in the bombing campaign, including the Interior Ministry headquarters and a Serbian army barracks. White House, Pentagon and CIA officials declined to comment on the report, which could not be independently confirmed.

* The Defense Department was reportedly reviewing a request from NATO commander Gen. Wesley K. Clark for 300 more aircraft to support the airstrikes. The Pentagon also served notice that it may call up reservists to help the air war. So far, only volunteer reservists from nine Air Force units, and a handful of others, have taken part.

* United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who has been largely sidelined in the crisis, wrote to Milosevic outlining conditions for a cessation of the bombing. But a U.N. spokesman said Milosevic had not responded.

* Defense Secretary William S. Cohen said there is no consensus in the United States, the Congress or NATO to deploy combat ground troops. “And there is no need, according to our commanding officers,” he told reporters.

* Fierce fighting between Kosovo rebels and Yugoslav troops was reported on the Yugoslav side of the border with Albania, and the Yugoslav military reported killing at least 150 guerrillas. That claim could not be independently confirmed. The Albanian government said it will rely on NATO for protection if the fighting spills over.

* During a dinner with U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, the foreign ministers of neighboring Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Macedonia, Romania and Slovenia unanimously endorsed NATO’s bombing campaign, according to a U.S. official who attended the session.

* Earlier in the day, Albright rejected a request from the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army for weapons. A U.S. official said Albright told a KLA representative that Washington was unwilling to break a U.N. embargo on supplying weapons to any element in Yugoslavia.

* Albright said she will tell Russian Foreign Minister Igor S. Ivanov when they meet today in Oslo that the only way Moscow will remain a factor in world politics is to use its diplomatic contacts to help persuade Milosevic that he cannot win and should give up.

The Yugoslav parliament, however, voted to join an alliance with Russia and Belarus in an apparent attempt to draw Russia into the conflict. Moscow is fiercely opposed to the NATO action, which it considers a violation of Yugoslav sovereignty, but it insists that it will not get militarily involved.

NATO has targeted bridges, railheads, tunnels and other potential communication and transportation choke points in an effort to cut military supply lines. In recent days, NATO strikes also have aimed at Serbian troop emplacements, staging areas and unit headquarters.

A NATO spokesman said the attacks now have destroyed between 50% and 70% of Serbia’s fuel reserves and knocked out both of the country’s oil refineries, rendering Yugoslavia’s crude oil supplies useless.

Other NATO officials said that up to 70% of the roads leading into Kosovo have been cut, mostly by knocking out a key bridge. An attack on another strategic bridge took a tragic turn Monday, however.

Yugoslavia’s state news agency, Tanjug, claimed that a NATO missile slammed into the second coach of a train crossing a bridge at Grdelicka Klisura, and three other passenger cars were derailed and set afire. Tanjug said at least 10 people were killed and 16 injured in the attack.

NATO confirmed that the train was “on or near” the bridge, which is about 180 miles south of the Yugoslav and Serbian capital, Belgrade. In a statement, NATO said it has taken “extraordinary measures to avoid collateral casualties” since the air war began.

“Regrettably, we cannot exclude the possibility of casualties in this instance,” NATO said. The train was en route from Belgrade, but there were conflicting reports as to whether it was bound for Salonika, Greece, or Skopje, Macedonia.

The incident appeared to be one of the worst cases of a misguided NATO airstrike in the current campaign. U.S. and other allied officials said the military campaign has relied more than any other war in history on laser-guided missiles and other so-called precision munitions in an attempt to minimize civilian casualties and limit the risk to allied pilots.

Yugoslavia claims that 300 civilians have been killed and 3,000 injured since the air war began, but no independent confirmation exists. NATO officials, in turn, estimate that more than 2,000 civilians died as a result of the “ethnic cleansing” and other atrocities conducted by Milosevic’s forces against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo before the allied airstrikes began.

The casualties may mount in coming weeks. Pentagon officials refused to rule out NATO planes striking bridges and other potential military targets where dozens of Yugoslav civilians have gathered in round-the-clock vigils.

Yugoslav authorities say those risking their lives are volunteers eager to show defiance of the allies. A senior Pentagon official said they were not “innocent civilians” because they had put themselves in harm’s way.

In a statement after their meeting, the 19 foreign ministers of the recently enlarged NATO expressed rock-solid unity. They said airstrikes “will be pursued until President Milosevic accedes to the demands of the international community.”

Albright appeared jubilant after the meeting. “Clearly, Milosevic is trying to divide NATO,” she said. “But we will not be divided. We will stand our ground. And we will be patient.”

NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana said, “We have the political will and resources to maintain our military pressure until Milosevic backs down.”

At the same time, allied officials acknowledged that Milosevic has shown no sign that he will give in any time soon.

Defense Secretary Cohen, who accompanied the president to Louisiana, confirmed that the Pentagon has contingency plans dating back to last fall for the use of U.S. troops in Kosovo. “Each plan, or assessment, can be quickly updated should the need arise,” he said.

Cohen told reporters that the air campaign was hurting what he called “Milosevic’s murder machine.” He said the bombing had hurt military morale and was leading to desertions of Serbian troops.

“They are now starting to feel that pain and agony that’s going to intensify, and we expect we will see even greater levels of desertion,” he said.

After a pause Sunday, ethnic Albanian refugees began crossing into Macedonia again, with 440 people entering at the Blace border point. Some of the refugees said Serbian forces shot over their heads to scare them as they boarded the train, according to Ron Redmond, spokesman for the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

The refugees reported seeing villages burning, or recently burned, in their trip to the border. Some said they had fled their homes two weeks ago and had taken refuge in homes abandoned by other families.

*

Drogin reported from Washington and Kempster from Brussels. Times staff writers Joel Havemann in Brussels; Paul Richter, Doyle McManus and Robin Wright in Washington; Elizabeth Shogren in Skopje; Janet Wilson at the United Nations; and Paul Watson in Kosovo contributed to this report.

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Strike Destroys Train

A NATO missile was blamed for destroying a Yugoslav passenger train near Grdelica. NATO, which said the target was the bridge the train was crossing, expressed regret for any loss of civilian life.

Source: Times wire services

More on the Crisis * RALLYING TROOPS--At an Air Force base in Louisiana, Clinton says the conflict in Yugoslavia could destabilize Europe.A18

* NEW ARMS ERA--Virtually every bomb dropped on Yugoslavia is a “smart” weapon.A19

* WARM WELCOME--Montenegro Albanians open homes to “internally displaced persons.”A20