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Albanian Rebels Launch New Attacks In Southern Serbia
BUJANOVAC, Yugoslavia, May 14 (News Agencies) - Ethnic Albanian rebels operating in southern Serbia have launched fresh attacks against Belgrade security forces, the government-run press center said here Monday.
The rebels of the Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac (LAPMB) have started "violent attacks against Yugoslav forces" deployed near the village of Oraovica, a scene of weekend clashes between the two sides, the center said.
The rebels have used "mortars, rocket launchers and anti-aircraft machine guns" in an attack that was still underway around 3:00 pm (1300 GMT), the center said, adding that the Belgrade forces have returned fire.
Oraovica, situated only a kilometer (less than a mile) north of Presevo - one of three southern Serbian towns with a strong Albanian population - was taken by the rebels on Saturday after an attack on Belgrade forces.
Serb security forces, however, have set up checkpoints at the roads leading to the village, reinforcing their presence in the area around Presevo, an AFP reporter at the scene said.
On Sunday, two rebels - Agim Halimi and Ylber Shaqiri - were killed in "sporadic" clashes around Oraovica, their families said.
Shaqiri is a relative of Mustapha Shaqiri, better known under his nom de guerre "commander Shpetimi," one of the leaders of the LAPMB, who have been fighting Belgrade for more than a year.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said in Pristina Monday that about 550 Albanians had fled the southern Serbian region around Presevo over the weekend.
The displaced arrived on Sunday and Monday to the region around the Kosovo town of Gnjilane, Astrid Van Genderen Stort, the UNHCR spokeswoman said.
On Saturday, a 12-year-old boy was shot dead and his sister seriously injured in fighting near Oraovica, situated just outside the buffer zone established around Kosovo after NATO's 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia.
The buffer zone was created after the war in Kosovo to keep Yugoslav troops and KFOR peacekeepers apart. Only lightly armed Serbian police were allowed to enter the five-kilometer (three-mile) wide strip of land.
But the rebels began using the zone as a hiding place to launch hit and run attacks on Serb security forces.
On March 14th, NATO allowed the Yugoslav army to begin progressively moving into the area, but sector B, where the guerillas are based, remains off-limits to the soldiers.
NATO would decide on Monday whether to allow Yugoslav forces back into Sector B.
The LAPMB has been fighting for more than a year for the predominantly Muslim Albanian border area to either win autonomy or be joined to neighboring Kosovo, a U.N.-run Serbian province which is 95% Muslim Albanian.
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