Serbs Stone GIs, Others on Kosovo Arms Search

A crowd of angry Serbs pelted American and German peacekeepers with rocks and bricks Sunday during a massive house-to-house search for illegal weapons in this tense, ethnically divided Kosovo town.

The weapons search was a bid to halt a spiral of violence that has been building since Feb. 2, when two Serbs died in a rocket attack on a United Nations bus. Nine people have been killed and dozens arrested in violence since in Kosovska Mitrovica, which is divided into predominantly Serbian and ethnic Albanian sides of town.

Lt. Col. Patrick Chanliau, a spokesman for French peacekeepers in the NATO-led Kosovo Force, or KFOR, said soldiers from a dozen countries found no weapons in the southern section, where mostly ethnic Albanians live.

In the Serbian northern part, where the Americans and some Germans came under attack from an angry crowd, he said soldiers found plastic explosives, 15 rifles and handguns, one grenade, one machine gun and loads of ammunition.

One person was arrested. Those injured included two American peacekeepers, one with a broken nose and one with a chipped tooth, and three Serbs, Chanliau said.

About 2,300 troops, including French, Americans, Germans and Canadians, set out shortly after dawn to conduct the major search operation on both sides of the Ibar River, which divides the town, said Canadian Lt. Cmdr. Philip Anido, a KFOR spokesman.

Peacekeepers’ helicopters circled above Kosovska Mitrovica, dropping leaflets that read: “Attention! Attention! KFOR soldiers are here to search for weapons. Hand over your weapons when asked to do so by KFOR soldiers. Do not impede KFOR operations. KFOR soldiers will treat you with dignity and respect.”

The troops went from house to house and building to building, searching through areas where the peacekeepers suspected there might be weapons and criminal activity, Anido said.

The Americans, who were searching in the Serbian north of the city, met with an increasingly hostile crowd that began throwing snowballs at their armored vehicles. Later, the crowd hurled stones and broken bricks. The hail of debris continued as the Americans drove south toward the ethnic Albanian section of town hours later.

Serbian officials bitterly complained about alleged acts of violence and intimidation committed by the Americans.

“Americans were smashing doors, destroying furniture. There was no reason for such behavior,” said Oliver Ivanovic, a local Serbian leader.

But U.S. spokesman Capt. Russel Berg called the troops and the U.N. military police who assisted them “very disciplined.”

Thousands of ethnic Albanians were killed by Serbian forces during Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic’s 18-month crackdown against separatists in Kosovo, a province of Serbia, the main republic of Yugoslavia. After aerial bombing by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization forced the Serbian troops to withdraw last spring, ethnic Albanians began attacking Serbs in revenge.