NATO reinforces as Kosovo comes to verge of armed conflict (Roundup)

Pristina/Belgrade - NATO peacekeepers rushed reinforcements to Kosovo's hotspot town of Mitrovica Monday, as weeks of confrontation flared to the verge of an all-out armed conflict between international security forces and rioting Serbs.

Head of the EU-led police and justice mission EULEX, Yves de Kermabon holds a press conference with Kosovo's President Fatmir Sejdiu (not pictured) in Pristina, Kosovo, 13 March 2008. NATO peacekeepers rushed reinforcements to Kosovo's hotspot town of Mitrovica Monday, as weeks of confrontation flared to the verge of an all-out armed conflict between international security forces and rioting Serbs. EPA/VALDRIN XHEMAJSome 400 KFOR peacekeepers were sent to the northern, Serb- dominated section of Mitrovica as UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) police and civilian officials were ordered out in a situation evaluated as too dangerous for non-military personnel. More than 100 people were injured after a Serb mob stoned, firebombed and shot at KFOR and UN police as it stormed a courthouse that protesters forcibly occupied since Friday. Police arrested 53 people it found in the courthouse, 21 of whom fled amid violence. Rioting lasted some six hours, from early morning until around noon, during which shots were occasionally heard. KFOR said in the early afternoon that it has imposed control over northern Mitrovica and established checkpoints around it and helicopters hovered above. Police spokesman Besim Hoti said 25 UN police officers were injured, while the KFOR spokesman Etienne Du Fayet said eight peacekeepers were injured. 'We received couple of hits by fire arms, cocktail Molotov's and even hand grenades. Those bullet hits were fired towards KFOR and injured our soldiers,' Du Fayet told Deutsche Presse- Agentur dpa. Kosovo Serbian medical sources said they treated nearly 80 protesters, two of whom were received with life-threatening injuries. The deputy head of UNMIK Larry Rossin and KFOR commander General Xavier Bout de Marnhac condemned 'the resort to lethal violence, including direct fire, taken by a mob.' Resorting to violence 'crosses one of the red lines that have been clearly articulated to the leaders of Kosovo Serbs in the north and to officials in Belgrade,' they said. But violence in northern Kosovo, the largest Serb enclave with parallel structures of authority endorsed by Serbia, has glimmered each day since Kosovo declared independence a month ago. At least encouraged by Belgrade leaders, including outgoing Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica and his hawkish Kosovo Minister Slobodan Samardzic, Serbs have protested daily in northern Kosovo and occasionally reached for violence. 'Activities that the Serbs undertake ... which sometimes include elements of low-level violence, are a product of Kosovo's illegal declaration of independence,' Samardzic said. After a spate of violence last month, when Serbs set UN vehicles and border checkpoints on fire, Samardzic justified the attacks as a 'legitimate' reaction to Kosovo's split from Serbia. While Pristina is desperate to keep the northern fifth of Kosovo under control, Belgrade wants to strengthen the de facto partition along ethnic lines by keeping both the Albanian-dominated government and the international presence out. Without security forces of its own, Pristina relies on UN and KFOR to impose laws north of river Ibar, in the Serb-dominated fifth of the country. Officials welcomed the raid on the Mitrovica courthouse. 'We asked UN and KFOR from the start of the crisis to restore law and order and protect Kosovo's institutions,' deputy premier Hajredin Kuci told dpa. 'The UN Mission in Kosovo and KFOR should deploy its entire force and authority in all parts of Kosovo.' In a statement Monday afternoon, however, Kostunica 'sharply condemns the use of force against Serbs who resist the establishment of a false state (Kosovo) on Serbia's soil.' With parliamentary polls in Serbia scheduled for May 11, tensions and potential for violence are certain to persist in northern Kosovo, as the receding province provides ammunition for the nationalist rhetoric in Belgrade.