In Kosovo, Car Reportedly Hits Soldier at Barrier

French soldiers fired at a car that deliberately ran into one of them at a checkpoint in the volatile city of Kosovska Mitrovica, the NATO-led peacekeeping force said Tuesday.

The Kosovo Force, or KFOR, said an occupant of the car was wounded in the Monday night incident, which came two days after clashes between Serbs and peacekeepers in the ethnically divided northern city in Kosovo, a province of Serbia, the dominant Yugoslav republic.

KFOR issued a statement saying the recent violence in Kosovska Mitrovica and attacks on minorities elsewhere in Kosovo had increased tension.

The car forced its way through a French military checkpoint in the Serb-dominated northern sector of the city and struck the soldier, slightly injuring him, KFOR said.

French troops fired on the car in an attempt to stop it, a spokesman for the force said. The car escaped and was later seen at the city’s main hospital in the northern sector with its driver and a wounded passenger.

A KFOR press officer in Kosovska Mitrovica, Lt. Eric Bouysson, said he had no details about the injuries to the occupant of the car because the hospital does not cooperate with international authorities, although, he said, it appeared likely the man had been shot.