ERRI Risk Assessment Services-Tuesday, March 23, 1999-1815 EST

*** CRISIS NEWS BRIEFS ***

SERBIA (EmergencyNet News) - Columns of smoke rose above Kosovo's hills on Tuesday as Serbian security forces burnt the homes of their ethnic Albanian foes and clashed with separatist rebels on two fronts in the province. As hopes dwindled for a peaceful solution to the Kosovo conflict, more refugees joined the tens of thousands made homeless in the last weeks, aid efforts petered out and reports emerged of arbitrary killings of civilians.

SERBIA (EmergencyNet News) - The Serbian government declared a state of emergency on Tuesday because of an "imminent threat of aggression" from NATO after the failure of the latest Kosovo peace mission. A U.S. envoy declared talks with Serbia's president over Kosovo a failure and headed to NATO eadquarters, as NATO airstrikes against Yugoslavia appeared imminent. Richard olbrooke said he made no real progress in two days of talks with Serbian eader Slobodan Milosevic. Holbrooke described the situation over Kosovo, where war the past year has left more than 2,000 people dead, as "the bleakest since we began this effort almost four years ago." With NATO airstrikes looming, the U.N.'s humanitarian agency and most European Union embassies in Belgrade were planning to close.

WASHINGTON/SERBIA (EmergencyNet News) - The U.S. Department of State said that it has told its embassy in Belgrade to close and is evacuating all the embassy staff in case of NATO attacks on Serbian targets. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright gave the order for security reasons after a briefing from U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke.

WASHINGTON/SERBIA (EmergencyNet News) - The United States warned Serbia on Tuesday that planned NATO air strikes on the Serb military would be swift, severe and painful following President Slobodan Milosevic's refusal to agree to peace in Kosovo.

From the ERRI Watch Center

SERBIA (EmergencyNet News) -- U.S. Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke declared talks with Serbia's president over Kosovo a failure on Tuesday, and Yugolav officials declared a state of emergency -- one step below a state of war. NATO airstrikes against Serbia appeared imminent. Perhaps, within hours. Holbrooke said two days of talks with Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic had not yielded the breakthrough the West had hoped for.

Holbrooke described the situation over Kosovo, where war the past year has left more than 2,000 people dead, as "the bleakest since we began this effort almost four years ago." Yugoslav officials, meanwhile, declared a state of emergency because of the threat of aggression by NATO. It calls for mobilization of troops and puts the army on a high state of alert. The state of emergency, which takes effect immediately, was announced on state television by Premier Momir Bulatovic. He said the measure was ordered because of the "imminent threat of war, the danger of aggression against Yugoslavia by NATO, which represents a direct threat against the sovereign state."

Before leaving Belgrade, Holbrooke said Milosevic had not agreed to any of the measures the allies were seeking to bring peace to the southern Serb province. He said negotiators had sought a promise of two things -- stopping the fighting in Kosovo and implementation of the Rambouillet agreements signed last week in France by the ethnic Albanian side of the conflict.

With NATO airstrikes looming, the United Nations' humanitarian agency and most European Union embassies in Belgrade -- including the U.S. Embassy -- were planning to close. Two airlines, Lufthansa and Air France, followed British Air in halting flights to the Yugoslav capital. Serb sources reported fighting on Tuesday in the northern Podujevo area and in the rebel stronghold region of Drenica, the focus of a powerful offensive against separatist guerrillas by the estimated 40,000 Yugoslav forces in Kosovo. There also was fighting reported near Vucitrn in the north. Houses in at least five northern villages were burned on Tuesday by Serb forces.

In Kosovo's capital, Pristina, bomb attacks on two ethnic Albanian-owned cafes on Monday night killed two people and seriously wounded four others. In Washington -- at a meeting at the White House, and later at a Democratic Senate meeting with members of the White House national security team, lawmakers were told to expect the strikes as early as tonight. In Rome -- Italian Foreign Minister Lamberto Dini said Tuesday that any allied military action against Belgrade was expected to start with missile attacks from NATO ships and could then be followed by air strikes. Dini told the upper house Senate: "The plans that have been drawn up in case they have to be put into action foresee missile attacks, not from Italian territory but from NATO ships, against Serbian and Yugoslav military targets."

Dini added: "It is expected there would be a pause after this first action against these military targets to weaken Serbia's military forces and thus to stop them if possible from deploying militarily in Kosovo. After a pause, if there should be no further negotiations, air strikes are foreseen against Serbia, again to wipe out that military capability and also perhaps to hit military and non-military infrastructure. In no case, in the plans outlined by NATO to date, is any intervention on the ground planned."

ERRI is closely monitoring all developments in regard to the imminent threat of military force against Serbia and will issue **FLASH** reports as needed. (click here to learn more about receiving EmergencyNet News reports)

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