Kostunica Warns of War in Kosovo

Yugoslavia’s new president huddled Thursday with his security commanders on the Kosovo border, where ethnic Albanian rebels have launched a major offensive, triggering Western concerns of another Balkan flash point.

Kosovo is a province of Serbia, Yugoslavia’s main republic, but it has been under international control since last year, and many residents want full independence. In the three-mile buffer zone between central Serbia and Kosovo, two days of attacks by the independence-minded rebels have left four Serbian policemen dead and 10 wounded. Rebels also captured several border checkpoints and a main road leading from the Presevo Valley region to Kosovo.

Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica warned that the attacks could spark a “large-scale war” and said the security situation “is drastically worsening each day.” He expressed hope that troops led by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in Kosovo would prevent further incidents.

The peacekeepers said Thursday that they had detained 10 ethnic Albanians suspected of launching the cross-border attacks and had seized a truckload of weapons. The arrests of the black-clad men were made Wednesday, the same day the four Serbian police officers died, according to Serbian officials.

Kostunica’s meeting with security commanders covered “immediate and long-term measures that the police and the army should take,” Interior Minister Stevan Nikcevic said.

International forces appealed for restraint on the part of Yugoslav troops but also strongly condemned the ethnic Albanian attacks.

“There is clear evidence that . . . Albanian guerrillas . . . have made unprovoked offensive attacks against Serb security forces,” said U.S. Lt. Col. Seth Braverman, a spokesman for the international troops. As a precaution, Braverman said, NATO-led peacekeepers closed down the only route to the Presevo Valley, on the Kosovo border.

Hundreds of Serbs fled nearby villages, fearing the fighting. About 50 protested Thursday in the border town of Bujanovac. Ethnic Albanians, a majority of the buffer zone’s population, holed up in their houses.

Kostunica and other Yugoslav officials have demanded that NATO take urgent measures to prevent further incidents.

The population of Kosovo is largely ethnic Albanian, and ethnic Albanian rebels want both Kosovo and the Presevo Valley to break away from Serbia and Yugoslavia.

Tensions were further heightened Thursday by the slaying of a close aide to moderate Kosovo Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova. Officials with Rugova’s party, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that Xhemajl Mustafa had been shot in Pristina.