EmergencyNet NEWS Service-Saturday, March 27, 1999- 09:19CST

CRISIS NEWS BRIEFS

SERBIA (EmergencyNet News) - NATO warplanes launched their biggest raids yet on Serbia, concentrating on military targets in Kosovo amid unconfirmed reports of anarchy and ethnic slaughter in the troubled province. On the third day of their bombardment of Yugoslav military targets Friday, NATO planes and missiles carried out two separate air assaults, including the first in daylight.

WASHINGTON/SERBIA (EmergencyNet News) - NATO warplanes on Saturday were to set their sights on targets inside Kosovo after Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic alarmed U.S. and allied officials by escalating oppression in the southern province. Despite three days of pounding by NATO bombs and missiles aimed at forcing Milosevic to accept a peace plan for Kosovo, attacks on ethnic Albanians were reported to have intensified.

WASHINGTON/SERBIA (EmergencyNet News) - As Yugoslavia braces for a fourth day of NATO air strikes, the United States is expanding its efforts to verify suspected Serbian war crimes against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. The U.S. military, using satellite photos and real-time images from unmanned surveillance aircraft flying over Yugoslavia, will try to document reports of increasing Serb assaults against Kosovars, the executions of civilians and looting and torching of ethnic Albanian-owned businesses in Kosovo's capital Pristina.

From the ERRI Watch Center

SERBIA (EmergencyNet News) - NATO warplanes launched their biggest raids yet on Serbia, concentrating on military targets in Kosovo amid unconfirmed reports of anarchy and ethnic slaughter in the troubled province. Serbian television reported that cruise missiles struck several targets on the outskirts of Belgrade in the second wave Friday night.

The ERRI Watch Center has also received reports from people living in Belgrade describing huge explosions seen from many miles away. The official Yugoslav news agency Tanjug reported that six missiles were fired at an airfield near Podgorica, the capital of Montenegro, which along with Serbia makes up the Yugoslav federation.

The Pentagon said that after damaging air defenses in Yugoslavia, NATO was increasingly shifting the focus of its attacks to army and police units operating in Kosovo. Department of Defense spokesman Ken Bacon said: "We have been attacking MUP (ministerial special police) headquarters and VJ (Serb army) command posts in and around Kosovo. We believe we have hit some troops as well, because when you attack headquarters, the quarters tend to have barracks around them, they tend to have military people around them."

As reports surfaced that Serb forces were retaliating against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo for the NATO attacks that began Wednesday, officials in Washington vowed there would be a price to pay for any reprisals. Kosovo itself appeared to be sinking into anarchy with reports of massacres of ethnic Albanians, armed Serbs roaming the streets and shops and cafes looted and burnt.

There were unconfirmed reports from the separatist Kosovo Liberation Army's Kosovapress news agency Friday that 30 civilians had been executed and their houses burned down in Suva Reka Thursday and Friday.

A Pristina resident, quoted by Kosovo Albanian journalists in touch by telephone with Pristina, said stickers were being attached to the doors of Serb homes to identify the occupiers as Serbs. Albanian homes were unmarked.

The Kosovo Information Center, run by the leading ethnic Albanian political party the Democratic League of Kosovo, has been burnt out. The center's network of correspondents around the province, which had provided twice-daily reports from virtually every flashpoint in the province, have been silenced and its website was no longer being updated.

In Belgrade, clouds of toxic gas drifted close to the capital after NATO planes hit a nearby factory, but defense authorities said the fumes were not heading toward the city.

The Pentagon said that up to a third of Yugoslavia's best fighter planes may have been destroyed. Pentagon spokesman Bacon said NATO warplanes shot down two MiG 29s, which are the elite fighter planes in the Serbian air force, after a skirmish over Bosnia. He said the two enemy aircraft were spotted by AWACS spotter planes once they had taken off and were then targeted. The FRY is believed to have had only 15 MiG-29s in its arsenal of 238 combat aircraft at the start of the conflict.

Bacon said: "They were shot down approximately five miles inside Bosnia. We do not know if the pilots are alive. [In deference to wide-spread reports yesterday] We do not have the pilots." Bacon also sent a clear warning to Yugoslavia that it would face "grave consequences" if its forces were to cross the border. Bacon added: "We are not going to telegraph our intentions but one thing they've learned is that crossing the border is just as dangerous as putting up their planes over Yugoslavia."

WASHINGTON (EmergencyNet News) -- Pentagon spokesman Ken Bacon said NATO is keeping a close eye on Russia's Machulishe Airfield south of Minsk, where large Russian cargo planes have landed since early this morning. Bacon said the cargo jets could be carrying planes and weapons destined for the Yugoslav military, which would violate a year-old arms embargo, but could also be normal traffic.

According to military intelligence sources, by 0130. EST, roughly 50 aircraft had landed at the airfield. Some are the same type of plane grounded this week in Azerbaijan with five MiG-20s on board. Bacon said Thursday it was unclear where that plane was headed, with both Belgrade and North Korea possibilities.

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