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Bombing Kosovo
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (AP) -- Wave after wave of NATO warplanes and missiles struck Yugoslavia Wednesday, pummeling army barracks, power plants and air defense batteries in an effort to force the country's defiant leader to cease his onslaught against Kosovo Albanians. The NATO attack came after months of diplomacy failed to end a year of fighting between Yugoslav forces and ethnic Albanian separatists that has killed more than 2,000 people and left more than 400,000 homeless in Kosovo, a Yugoslav province. "Only firmness now can prevent greater catastrophe later," President Clinton said from the White House shortly after the bombing began. "Kosovo's crisis is now full-blown, and if we do not act clearly it will get even worse." Yugoslavia declared a state of war shortly after the first attacks, increasing the mobilization of troops. The Yugoslav army said more than 20 targets were hit in the first hour but claimed that no air defense units were damaged -- reportedly a major target of the NATO strikes. Explosions resounded in Kosovo's capital of Pristina starting at 7:55 p.m. local time (1:55 p.m. EST), and the city of 280,000 was plunged into darkness when the electricity failed. The official Tanjug news agency reported four heavy blasts in the city, including three from the area of Slatina airport. More than a dozen explosions were heard around Belgrade, the Yugoslav capital, including some near Batajnica military airport and one near a power plant. In neighboring Montenegro, which with Serbia forms Yugoslavia, an army military barracks in Danilovgrad was in flames after being hit. One soldier was reported killed and three others were wounded, officials said. Reporters were not immediately able to get to the targets to see the effects of the strikes. The center of Belgrade was quiet and unhit, and state media reported early Thursday that the air alert had been called off. NATO bombing targets were spread throughout the country. In Kosovo, the targets appeared to be at least 15 miles from Pristina, in areas where it is dangerous to travel at night. During the bombardment, about 25 foreign journalists on the roof of the Hyatt Hotel in Belgrade were detained by police. Some were later released. CNN said those detained included four of its producers and photographers. Explosions also were heard in the area of Novi Sad in northern Serbia, northwest of Belgrade. Television footage from the town showed debris on a road outside a damaged police station, and beyond it flames consuming wreckage and casting an orange glow in the sky. In Belgrade, many military-age men left their homes, spending the night with friends to avoid the draft. "This is serious, but I don't want to be killed without knowing why," said Filp Pavicevic, 30, as he packed his bag to take refuge in another apartment. Scores of cruise missiles and one-ton bombs were fired at Yugoslav targets. Dozens of warplanes were used, including six U.S. B-52 bombers and two B-2 stealth bombers. "We are attacking the military infrastructure that President [Slobodan] Milosevic and his forces are using to repress and kill innocent people," U.S. Secretary of Defense William Cohen said in Washington. "NATO forces are not attacking the people of Yugoslavia." A NATO spokesman in Naples, Italy, denied a Yugoslav media report that a NATO plane had been shot down. "We have not -- repeat not -- lost an aircraft," Capt. Steve Burnett told the BBC. A U.S. Defense Department official, speaking in Washington on condition of anonymity, said at least one Yugoslav MiG fighter had been shot down. The NATO bombings drew harsh condemnation from Russian President Boris Yeltsin, who ordered his nation to pull out of its partnership with NATO and warned of possible further steps to protest the airstrikes. In New York, Russian and U.S. diplomats clashed openly at an emergency session of the U.N. Security Council. Russia's U.N. Ambassador Sergey Lavrov demanded an end to the NATO strikes, calling them an "illegal military action." U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan chided the Western alliance for failing to involve the council in its decision to use force. Earlier, NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana insisted the attack was justified because of Milosevic's intransigence. "We must stop the violence and bring an end to the humanitarian catastrophe now taking place in Kosovo," he said. "We have a moral duty to do so." Milosevic has repeatedly refused to end the war against ethnic Albanian separatists and accept a peace plan for Kosovo. Only hours before the NATO attack, he delivered a final message of defiance, urging Yugoslavs in a nationally televised address to defend the country "by all means." "What is at stake here is the freedom of the entire country, and Kosovo was only the door intended to allow foreign troops to come in," Milosevic said. Two days of talks with U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke failed to persuade the Yugoslav leader to accept a U.S.-backed plan and its call for 28,000 NATO troops to enforce peace in Kosovo. The ethnic Albanians, who make up 90 percent of Kosovo's 2 million people, accepted the plan at Paris peace talks, but the Serbs refused. Fighting raged in several Kosovo villages on Wednesday prior to the airstrikes. Serbian tanks fired volley after volley into areas near Kosovo's southern border with Macedonia, and Associated Press Television News journalists saw about 100 houses ablaze in three devastated villages close to the border. An estimated 40,000 Yugoslav army and Serbian police forces are in Kosovo, pursuing the massive crackdown Milosevic launched in February 1998 to try to crush the separatists. Western allies said the door was open at any time for Milosevic to accept the Kosovo deal -- which the Albanians have already signed. "One phone call from Milosevic would be enough," German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said at a European Union summit in Berlin. The NATO onslaught, which officials have said could last for days, relied heavily on cruise missiles launched from allied warships in the alliance's Mediterranean fleet. More than 400 warplanes were stationed at NATO bases in Italy for the attack. NATO's Mediterranean fleet, which includes eight warships from eight countries, sailed from Trieste. Ahead of the attacks, Yugoslavia declared a state of emergency Tuesday night, ordering its forces dispersed to hide from bombings. Many people went on panic shopping sprees and long lines formed at gas stations. Neighboring nations also were on alert, concerned that war might spill
across more borders in the unstable Balkans and about a possible flood of
refugees fleeing Serbia and Kosovo.
© 1999 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
The information contained in the AP News report may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority
of the Associated Press.
Powerless in Kosovo For the West, saber-rattling is cheap, but action is unlikely.
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