Albanian Separatists Attack Yugoslav Troops In South Serbia
BELGRADE, Feb 10 (News Agencies) - Ethnic Albanian separatists in southern Serbia launched a mortar attack against Yugoslav army troops in the Presevo valley on Saturday, the state-run Tanjug agency reported.
According to local authorities, the Albanian separatists fired four mortar rounds, one of which caused damage to a house in the village of Crnotrince.
Nobody was reported injured in the attack, according to the press center in Bujanovac, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) north of Presevo, where EU observers together with Serb and Yugoslav officials monitoring the region are based.
But an Albanian commander in the Presevo region said that two of his fighters had been slightly wounded and that government forces had also suffered casualties during five hours of intense fighting on Saturday.
The Albanian fighters are from the UCPMB - the Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac, representing the three main towns populated by ethnic Albanians in southern Serbia.
In an effort to calm the situation in the region - which has been the scene of violent flare-ups recently - Belgrade on Tuesday presented a plan for a negotiated settlement for the region.
The proposal calls for ethnic Albanians to play a greater role in political life and offers financial aid for the region, one of the poorest in the country. It stops short, however, of granting the region autonomy.
Ethnic Albanian separtists on Thursday rejected the plan, saying it fell well short of their demands, although the leader of the Albanian Party of Democratic Action said that talks to reach peace in the region would go ahead.
The separatists want the Presevo Valley - home to some 70,000 ethnic Albanians but also around 30,000 Serbs - to be linked to Kosovo, which has been run by the U.N. since NATO bombed the forces of ousted president Slobodan Milosevic out of the province 20 months ago.
