EmergencyNet NEWS Service-Wednesday, March 31, 1999-09:25CST

CRISIS NEWS BRIEFS

ALBANIA (EmergencyNet News) - The number of refugees crossing into Albania from war-torn Kosovo was nearing 100,000 Wednesday and the influx showed no signs of letting up. The Tirana office of the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe said 18,000 ethnic Albanians had arrived in the past 24 hours alone.

BELGIUM (EmergencyNet News) - NATO allies have authorized Supreme Commander General Wesley Clark to broaden the number, type and scope of bombing targets to inflict more pain on the Yugoslav military and send a clearer message to President Slobodan Milosevic, NATO diplomatic sources said on Wednesday that the decision was taken at a restricted meeting of NATO ambassadors on Tuesday.

MACEDONIA (EmergencyNet News) - Serb forces have herded hundreds of Pristina residents onto a locked train and expelled them from Kosovo as part of a campaign to empty the province of ethnic Albanians.

RUSSIA (EmergencyNet News) - Russian news agencies reported on Wednesday that Russia will send warships to the Mediterranean in response to NATO airstrikes against Yugoslavia after Moscow's diplomatic efforts failed to end the bombings. However, Russia has said repeatedly that its military will not become directly involved in the conflict in Yugoslavia. A squadron of seven ships, including missile frigates and anti-submarine frigates from the Black Sea fleet, will be sent to the Mediterranean in early April.

SERBIA (EmergencyNet News) - NATO renewed its attacks on Yugoslavia on Wednesday, hitting targets around Belgrade and Kosovo after dismissing a ceasefire offer by Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. In the eighth day of air strikes, NATO missiles struck industrial suburbs of Belgrade and installations around the Kosovan capital Pristina.

WASHINGTON (EmergencyNet News) - U.S. defense officials said on Tuesday that NATO air strikes have damaged the ability of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's forces to launch surface-to-air missiles, destroyed more than half of their advanced MiG-29 fighters and damaged ammunition depots. Without giving numbers, the officials showed aerial photographs of targets hit by NATO air strikes in Yugoslavia and of burning buildings in Kosovo in their most detailed assessment so far of the operation.

From the ERRI Watch Center

SERBIA (EmergencyNet News) - After dismissing a ceasefire offer by Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, NATO renewed its attacks on Yugoslavia on Wednesday, hitting targets around Belgrade and Kosovo. In the eighth day of air strikes, NATO missiles struck industrial suburbs of Belgrade and installations around the Kosovan capital Pristina.

Two U.S. newspapers reported that NATO ambassadors had agreed in closed session on Tuesday to expand the list of bombing targets by about 20 percent to include sites in downtown Belgrade and more points in Kosovo. The Washington Post, quoting an unnamed U.S. official, said the decision to broaden the target list was aimed at literally bringing the air war home to Milosevic by blowing up facilities crucial to his regime and close to where he usually lives.

A senior NATO diplomat was quoted by the Post as saying: "We have all been taken aback by the brutality of the Serb operations. There are people without a lot of scruples who are out of control." Cloudy weather has slowed NATO's mission. British pilots complained they had to abort missions overnight for the second time this week due to weather. They said American pilots had to launch anti-radar missiles to protect themselves from ground fire, indicating Yugoslavia's air defenses were still a threat.

As the military and diplomatic moves multiplied, refugees continued to flee the conflict. In an ominous new development on Wednesday, hundreds more arrived in Macedonia on a locked train, saying they had been herded onto carriages by Serb forces. The refugees said they had been rounded up from several districts in the Kosovan capital Pristina on Tuesday and put on a passenger train which was then locked. They waited several hours without food and water before the train moved off.

The number of refugees crossing into Albania from Kosovo was nearing 100,000 on Wednesday and the influx showed no signs of letting up. A spokesman for the Tirana office of the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe, said 18,000 ethnic Albanians had arrived in the past 24 hours alone.

At the Macedonian border today, refugees described a line of cars believed to stretch more than three miles into Kosovo, and Serb security forces were said to be searching passengers.

The Times of London on Wednesday quotes intelligence sources as saying Serb forces have been seen positioning trucks filled with explosives in populated areas around Kosovo. The sources said it appears the Serbs intend to detonate the explosives and blame the resulting destruction on NATO air raids.

By Jeremy Zakis, ERRI Asia and Pacific Desk

BELGIUM (EmergencyNet News) - After a week of bombing, OPERATION ALLIED FORCE is continuing in Kosovo and according to Vice Adm. Scott A. Fry, Joint Staff Director of Operation, at the Joint Staff briefing on Tuesday, there is no desire to pause or stand-down operations.

To date over 1,700 sorties have been flown in the region with some 100 Cruise missile launches. The NATO forces are facing an army of 25,000 troops, augmented by between 12,000 and 14,000 special military police, nearly 300 tanks and Armored Personnel Carriers (APC's) and nearly 200 artillery pieces. The Kosovo landscape is also lined with hundreds of Surface to Air (SAM) missile batteries and thousands shoulder fired missiles (MANPAD's), that have become one of the main targets for allied bombings.

According to Rear Adm. Thomas R. Wilson, Joint Staff Director of Intelligence, the assessment made by intelligence is that the strikes are doing 'increasing physical damage' to specific targets. These targets are the air defense systems, fighter aircraft on the ground and in the air, command and control facilities, intelligence facilities and industrial centers capable of repairing and producing military equipment.

OPERATION ALLIED FORCE has been relatively successful for the allies with only one aircraft lost and the pilot saved. But when a journalist asked Vice Adm. Fry if he believed the situation in Kosovo was worse than he thought it would be a week ago, he painted a true picture of the operational difficulty of the theatre they're working with: "There are difficult targets. This is difficult terrain. It's mountainous; it's tree covered. This is not the desert. The weather has not been in our favor either... we knew this was going to be hard."

During the press conference, the objective of OPERATION ALLIED FORCE came under scrutiny from reporters several times. Vice Adm. Fry said the objective of the operation is to degrade the capability of both the special police and the military to conduct regressive actions against the Kosovar Albanians.

Reporters and much of the western media have taken that to mean the goal is to prevent the atrocities on the ground. According to Vice Adm. Fry, this is not the case. He reiterated that the objective is purely a military one and not a civil one.

He said, OPERATION ALLIED FORCE is designed to degrade the Serbian's ability to conduct the repressive action. This involves attacking the Serb military to the point where they are no longer able to sustain their offense. Not directly intervening and preventing the ethnic cleansing by Serb forces.

"We never supposed or reported that we had a silver bullet that would bring that [ethnic cleansing] to a halt... Slobodan Milosevic can stop the ethnic cleansing tomorrow" Vice Adm. Fry added. 

Other interesting points raised at the press briefing were the perceived misuse of the A-10 'Tank-Killers' which are operating above 15,000 feet rather than at treetop level. Vice Adm. Fry explained that at this point, the MANPAD's are making flight below this level too dangerous for allied aircraft. Reporters also questioned the usefulness of the five B-1B bombers sent into the region two day's ago since they are most effective flying into their target area's low and fast.

However, Vice Adm. Fry declined to comment on the role of the B-1B's. One factor creating a problem for allied air-strikes, is the deteriorating weather conditions in the Kosovo region. Since the first day, the weather has deteriorated daily and in recent days, sorties have been unable to complete their missions due to target area's being 'weathered out'. Even so, Vice Adm. Fry assured the press briefing that even though missions have been impacted by the weather conditions, they have still managed to get 'packages' into the target area every night.

In closing the press briefing, Vice Adm. Fry made a pertinent comment exemplifying the commitment of allied forces in the region: "Now are we going to use more or less in the future? I don't want to characterize that, but we're going to keep, as I've said, this same kind of level of effort as we continue day by day by day to service the target sets."

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