EmergencyNet NEWS Service-Monday, April 5, 1999-09:28CDT

CRISIS NEWS BRIEFS

SERBIA (EmergencyNet News) - NATO missiles pounded Yugoslavia yet again early Monday, apparently striking at Belgrade's main airport and hitting targets in Kosovo. The missiles reportedly hit the offices of an air base in the city's northern district of Zemun.

WASHINGTON (EmergencyNet News) - The United States said Sunday it planned to send 24 Apache helicopters and about 2,000 support troops to Albania to join in NATO air strikes against Yugoslav forces driving ethnic Albanians out of Kosovo. The Pentagon said the decision to send the Apaches, which is expected to be approved by NATO Monday, was designed to ratchet up the 12-day-old NATO air campaign against Yugoslavia and was not a precursor to using ground troops in Kosovo.

WASHINGTON (EmergencyNet News) - The Washington Post was reporting on Monday that U.S. military chiefs expressed deep reservations about the White House's approach to Kosovo in the weeks before NATO began air strikes against Yugoslavia. The Pentagon's senior four-star officers warned administration officials that that bombing alone likely would not achieve their political aims in Kosovo.

From the ERRI Watch Center

SERBIA (EmergencyNet News) - NATO missiles pounded Yugoslavia yet again early Monday, apparently striking at Belgrade's main airport and hitting targets in Kosovo. Missiles reportedly hit the offices of an air base in the city's northern district of Zemun. Montenegro Radio said eleven people were wounded in a NATO attack on the Yugoslav Army's Ibarski Rudari barracks in Raska in southern Serbia.

NATO missiles reportedly hit the headquarters of Yugoslavia's 3rd Army command in attacks on the major southeastern Serbian town of Nis early Monday. Military targets in the town's industrial zone had been hit in the overnight attacks, causing a fire that spread to a tobacco warehouse.

Serbian state television said a series of explosions came from the direction of Belgrade's Surcin international airport at 0220 hours local time (0020 GMT). Flames were also visible in a nearby forest where a training school and barracks of the special police forces (MUP) are located. Slatina airfield southeast of the Kosovan provincial capital Pristina also had been reported attacked.

NATO was expected on Monday to approve a U.S. plan to send Apache ground attack helicopters to step up the alliance's air strikes against defiant Yugoslav forces pushing ethnic Albanians out of Kosovo. The use of the ground attack helicopters would dramatically improve the Western alliance's ability to hit Yugoslav tanks and troops attacking ethnic Albanians and driving them out of the southern Yugoslav province. However the low-flying Apaches would be far more vulnerable to anti-aircraft fire, raising the chances of casualties that NATO has avoided by pursuing its air campaign chiefly with air- and sea-launched cruise missiles and high-altitude bombing.

Sending the Apaches to Albania with aircraft maintenance, communications and military intelligence support soldiers as well as a mechanized infantry battalion also raises the risk of the troops being drawn into conflict with Yugoslav forces.

By late Sunday, more than 350,000 ethnic Albanians had poured out of Kosovo to Albania and Macedonia, whose pleas for international help brought planeloads of emergency aid.

By Paul Anderson, ERRI Analyst

WASHINGTON (EmergencyNet News) - The Washington Post was reporting on Monday that the U.S. military chiefs expressed deep reservations about the White House's approach to Kosovo in the weeks before NATO began air strikes against Yugoslavia. The Pentagon's senior four-star officers reportedly warned administration officials that that bombing alone likely would not achieve their political aims in Kosovo.

The newspaper quoted one senior officer as saying: "I don't think anybody felt like there had been a compelling argument made that all of this was in our national interest."

The Post said that during closed-door sessions, the military chiefs challenged the "domino theory" being pressed by U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, which warned that other countries in the Balkan region could be destabilized if Serb aggression against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo was not halted. Ultimately, the chiefs agreed to go along with air strikes, but 2 days into the NATO campaign, they remained skeptical that the air raids alone could achieve the larger political aims of stopping the violence in Kosovo and driving Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic back to the bargaining table.

According to the Post, while the chiefs remained wary of recommending use of ground troops, they have stressed that force that was sent in to Yugoslavia would have to be substantial. The chiefs suggested pursuing other, nonmilitary means to wall off the unrest in Kosovo, urging more aggressive use of economic sanctions or the international indictment of Milosevic for war crimes.

The newspaper also said that the military chiefs remain frustrated about the incremental progression of the NATO air campaign, which they blame on predictably bad weather and the requirements of conducting war by consensus among all 19 NATO members.

NEW YORK CITY (EmergencyNet News) - Newsweek magazine is reporting that several Serbian officials plotted to oust Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic in the early 1990s but abandoned the plan after failing to win support from the United States. The magazine reported that the CIA penetrated Milosevic's government and one agency veteran was quoted as saying that prior to the 1995 Dayton peace accord, "We were doing all kinds of dicey things, covertly."

Newsweek said a former CIA official added that during the talks, which resulted in a Balkan treaty between the warring parties in Bosnia, "we had the place (Belgrade) wired. We knew what was going on, when it was going to happen and we told everybody who needed to know."

The magazine said the CIA was contacted by a Milosevic insider who said he had the backing of key Yugoslav military leaders to overthrow the president, who was elected in 1987. The plotters sought U.S. financing and a pledge from Washington to lift economic sanctions if the plot succeeded, but the CIA declined to approve the plan. The source said the U.S. administration considered Milosevic indispensable to negotiations aimed at ending the fighting in Bosnia.

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