Cohen Says Kosovo Needs More Police, Not Troops

U.S. Defense Secretary William S. Cohen said Wednesday that a clash in which 11 American troops were injured in Kosovo shows the need for more police in the region, not more soldiers.

He also called the international peacekeeping mission in the Serbian province a success, measured by the fact that more than 800,000 ethnic Albanian refugees have returned to Kosovo and 550,000 internally displaced ethnic Albanians are back home.

“Overall, there has been a general peace maintained. There have been flashes of conflict periodically; yesterday was one example of that in which some of the soldiers were injured,” Cohen said at a news briefing during a visit with Qatari officials.

Cohen said the U.S. soldiers suffered mostly minor injuries, with the most serious a broken hand.

“So, I think under the circumstances, given the tension that has existed for some time and given the passions that obviously are still quite high, given the atrocities that have taken place in the past--overall, great success has been achieved,” he said.

“I don’t believe there’s any need at this point for increased participation of more multilateral troops. What it shows is there’s more need for police,” Cohen said. He said the clash occurred during what essentially was a police action.

U.S. officers said their troops were trapped in a canyon by rock-throwing Serbs and forced to abandon military vehicles during the battles with villagers Tuesday, and that a Serbian prisoner at the center of the conflict had escaped.

U.S. military police and Polish troops had entered the isolated Serbian village of Sevce on Tuesday to search the home of a man held on suspicion of illegally possessing two hand grenades, U.S. military spokeswoman Maj. Deborah Allen said.