EmergencyNet NEWS Service-Friday, March 26, 1999-09:18CST

CRISIS NEWS BRIEFS

SERBIA (EmergencyNet News) - NATO forces attacked Yugoslavia with missiles and bombs for a second night and Britain vowed on Friday the raids would continue "night after night" until Yugoslav forces stopped attacking Kosovo Albanians. The latest raids abated in the early hours of Friday, but witnesses said four U.S. B-52 bombers, loaded with cruise missiles, took off again at 0918 GMT from a British air base at Fairford in western England.

WASHINGTON/SERBIA (EmergencyNet News) - NATO bombing in Yugoslavia is hitting Serb Army and police command and support facilities, including fuel and ammunition dumps, to weaken President Slobodan Milosevic's ability to return fire or attack Kosovo Albanians. The airstrikes, led by sea-launched cruise missiles and two B-2 stealth bombers each carrying 16 2,000-pound bombs, also hammered away last night at the Serb's formidable air defense system, which has put up little resistance so far during two days of allied attacks.

From the ERRI Watch Center

SERBIA (EmergencyNet News) - NATO forces attacked Yugoslavia with missiles and bombs for a second night. The latest raids abated in the early hours of Friday, but witnesses said four U.S. B-52 bombers, loaded with cruise missiles, took off again at 0918 GMT from a British air base at Fairford in western England.

Albania's ATA news agency reported Serbian forces had massacred 20 ethnic Albanian village teachers in Kosovo in front of their pupils. ATA quoted Information Minister Musa Ulqini as saying that 176 Kosovo refugees who crossed into northeastern Albania Thursday told of a massacre in the border village of Dobrune.

NATO missiles and warplanes had hit targets across Yugoslavia overnight including airports, barracks and air defense sites. Big explosions were heard near the Yugoslav capital Belgrade. Among targets reported hit were Yugoslav army barracks at Urosevac and Prizren in Kosovo, where there were reports of casualties, a factory producing military supplies in the central Serbian town of Trstenik, an airport at Serbia's second city, Nis, and military bases in Montenegro.

The Yugoslav state news agency Tanjug, monitored by the BBC in London, reported that NATO forces had targeted some 40 military "facilities and residential areas" in attacks on Thursday night. NATO said all of its planes had returned safely. NATO chiefs in Brussels said Serbian security forces were still attacking ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. Tanjug said that ethnic Albanian groups  had attacked Yugoslav army positions and Serb police patrols in the villages of Podrime, Orahovac and Zrze, around 30 miles from Prizren in southern Kosovo on Thursday.

SERBIA (EmergencyNet News) - The Yugoslavian air defense network is based on a complex Soviet-style multi-layered system. It works on three levels and is designed to force enemy pilots higher, making their weapons less accurate, or lower into the range of hand-held missiles.

According to Chris Foss of Jane's Defense Weekly, the ageing network has recently been updated. He said: "Most of the Yugoslav air defense systems are of Russian origin and tend to be fairly old. They have recently, however, had a modernizing upgrade and some systems have had an electro-optical package added. This means they can engage enemy aircraft without using their radar. The moment any air defense system switches on its radar they will be detected by the enemy and open to attack."

The Yugoslav network comprises three levels with an overall strategic or national air defense, a battlefield defense and a "spot" defense which protects strategically important individual sites. The mainstay of the strategic defence is the SA2 missile, codenamed "Guideline" by NATO.

The long-range surface-to-air missile contains 195 kilograms of high explosive and is positioned in belts of launchers across the country. More threatening SA10 Grumble missiles, packing 135 kilos of high explosive, are also used in a strategic defense role and have a range of 100 kilometres. They can be fired from highly mobile launchers which can let off three 1.5 ton missiles in a second.

The SA6 Gainful missile is the main battlefield defence which is backed up by some 2,000 shoulder-launched heat-seeking systems and AAA guns. Foss said most of the low range air defense missiles are "clear weather" systems which could not engage targets at night or in bad weather. He said: "All the time NATO is using darkness as cover a lot of the Yugoslav defense systems are not of much use. Daylight would open up a lot of other systems and NATO aircraft would come under increased danger of being engaged."

The main threat in air-to-air combat comes from the Yugoslav airforce's 15 MiG 29s which are far superior to the 60 outdated MiG 21s at their disposal.

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