Aide to Top Ethnic Albanian Killed; Hostage Deadline Set
An aide to Kosovo’s top ethnic Albanian leader was assassinated outside his home Monday, hours after hard-line Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic set a deadline for rebels holding eight Yugoslav soldiers hostage.
The shooting of Enver Maloku, an associate of moderate Ibrahim Rugova, worsened the already explosive atmosphere in Kosovo, where guerrillas are fighting for the Albanian-majority province’s independence from Serbia, the main republic in Yugoslavia.
A European official who met with Milosevic on Monday said the Yugoslav leader has set a deadline for the release of the soldiers, who were seized Friday after their convoy reportedly strayed into rebel-held territory.
Norwegian Foreign Minister Knut Vollebaek, who chairs the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, or OSCE, warned that Kosovo will explode in bloodshed unless the separatist Kosovo Liberation Army, or KLA, releases the soldiers immediately.
“There is very little time left, and we have to see an immediate release of the hostages if we [are going to] avoid a major conflict,” Vollebaek said in Belgrade, the Serbian and Yugoslav capital. He did not specify the time limit for Milosevic’s deadline.
The OSCE said the captive soldiers were being treated well in a heated building near Stari Trg, a village 30 miles northwest of Pristina, the capital of Kosovo.
Maloku, the head of the Kosovo Information Center, was shot Monday in front of his home in Pristina.
Initial reports said Maloku was targeted by a sniper, but sources later said he was hit by semiautomatic gunfire from three assassins.
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