EmergencyNet NEWS Service-Friday, April 9, 1999-11:00CDT

CRISIS NEWS BRIEFS

ALBANIA (EmergencyNet News) - OSCE officials said that Serbian forces and Kosovo Liberation Army guerrillas exchanged machine-gun fire on the Yugoslav-Albanian border and two mortar shells landed in Albanian territory. A spokesman for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe: "The skirmish began around 6 a.m. (0400 GMT) and is continuing. Our monitors are assessing the situation from a distance."

BELGIUM (EmergencyNet News) - A NATO official on Friday denied reports that France had been excluded from some of the alliance's military planning on Yugoslavia due to fears information would be leaked to the Serbs.

MACEDONIA (EmergencyNet News) - The United Nations refugee agency UNHCR said Friday that 10,000 ethnic Albanian refugees from Kosovo not accounted for earlier had been located in Macedonia and neighboring Albania.

RUSSIA (EmergencyNet News) - Interfax news agency quoted Russia's parliamentary speaker as saying Friday that President Boris Yeltsin had ordered the country's strategic missiles to be aimed at those states bombing Yugoslavia. Gennady Seleznyov, a Communist who is speaker of the State Duma lower house, made his comments in an interview with Interfax. A spokesman for the Strategic Rocket Forces said he knew of no change to standing orders on the targeting of missiles. There was no immediate word from the Kremlin.

SERBIA (EmergencyNet News) - NATO warplanes hit targets in eastern Belgrade early Friday as the Western alliance sought for a third week to force Yugoslavia into an autonomy and peacekeeping deal over Kosovo. Albanian television reported that tens of thousands of ethnic Albanians were trapped by Serb forces in central Kosovo and threatened with starvation.

From the ERRI Watch Center

SERBIA (EmergencyNet News) - NATO warplanes hit targets in eastern Belgrade early Friday and Albanian television reported that tens of thousands of ethnic Albanians were trapped by Serb forces in central Kosovo and threatened with starvation.

In Washington, the Pentagon said intensified NATO raids had taken a rising toll on Serb targets this week and were "seriously disrupting" Belgrade's ability to supply its troops in Kosovo.

And, in a bizarre twist to the NATO raids, it emerged Friday that Russia and Belarus backed a request from Milosevic for his country to join their loose political union. The Russian parliamentary speaker Gennady Seleznyov, who returned Thursday from talks in Belgrade, told reporters President Boris Yeltsin had already asked the Russian Foreign Ministry to draw up the relevant documents.

Belgrade's Studio B television station quoted the city's civil defense crisis center as saying NATO aircraft "hit the wider area of eastern Belgrade." The Belgrade-based news agency Beta reported that NATO warplanes had attacked a petrol depot in the southeast of the capital. A huge fire was reported. Beta added that a number of strong explosions were heard in the Pancevo area of northern Belgrade.

The official Tanjug news agency said NATO missiles hit a fuel depot in the southern town of Smederevo in the early hours of Orthodox Good Friday. Tanjug also said the site of the country's sole car-maker Zastava, was hit by at least seven missiles during the 16th night of NATO raids.

Other attacks were reported near a Serbian television relay station near Jagodina and along an electric power relay system near Valjevo, 15 miles south of here. NATO had threatened to go after Serbian television facilities for spreading "lies" about the air campaign. And Studio B television said NATO planes were "active" early today around two towns, Uzice and Pozega, located about 60 miles to the south of Belgrade.

The United States said Yugoslavia's two oil refineries had been knocked out, and NATO air attacks in good weather had curbed Belgrade's ability to supply fuel to its troops in Kosovo by at least 20 percent.

Yugoslav authorities have also confirmed they are holding two CARE Australia aid workers who disappeared nine days ago.  Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer demanded the immediate release of Steve Pratt and Peter Wallace, saying he did not know why the two men were detained or their condition.

By Jeremy Zakis, ERRI Asia and Pacific Desk

WASHINGTON (EmergencyNet News) - With good weather on Thursday, allied forces managed to hit 22 target area's in the Kosovo region and are starting to see signs that OPERATION ALLIED FORCE is succeeding in repressing Serb military forces. The latest reports from the Defense Briefing in Washington said that within the past 48-hours, U.S. F-16's have gone against Serb military vehicles; Dutch F-16's have gone against anti-aircraft artillery and armor and U.S. A-10 aircraft went against other military vehicles.  French Super Etendard and British GR-7 Harriers also assisted in the air operations.

NATO bombings continued to pound a number of command and control elements of the Serb army including, barracks, storage area's, maintenance area's and support buildings used to house the heavier fighting equipment and ammunition. Latest intelligence indicates that 50 percent of these targets were destroyed.

Elsewhere, Serb petroleum, oil and lubricant (POL) facilities have been seriously damaged with principal refineries in Pancevo and Novi Sad being put out of operation. Pancevo refinery, which provides nearly two-thirds of Serbia's oil, was the worst hit and is not capable of operating again for a long time. The remaining one-third of oil was produced at Novi Sad, which was also severely damaged.

According to Rear Adm. Thomas R. Wilson of the Joint Staff, the POL target sets have been the most damaging to Serb forces sustainability. "We're continuing to see strong evidence... of supply problems and fuel problems plaguing the Serbian forces," Rear Adm. Wilson said. "We believe that in total the military and strategic reserve fuel storage capability has beenn reduced some-where over 20 percent of capacity," he added.  Additionally, a number of successful strikes against strategic bridges and railroads have made it difficult for Serb forces to transship fuel to desired areas.

Rear Adm. Wilson also addressed the issue of collateral damage directly saying that, "the collateral damage is being done by the Serbs." Wilson explained that NATO bombing is being done with a lot of planning and concern for collateral damage. "The only two targets that have been attacked in the heavily urban area of Pristina were the main telephone exchange two nights ago. It is an important military target because important communications can go via commercial telephone land lines," he said, citing one example of where media reports had accused NATO of hitting civilian targets.

As for damage on the allied side there has been, "very, very little, if any", Major General Charles F. Wald told Thursday's press briefing. The only damage being the F-117 downed early on in ALLIED FORCE.

Air strikes are expected to continue even though Milosevic has attempted to call a cease-fire, a tactic that military officials say was to give his forces time to build up strength. As for the weather in the region, it will probably worsen over the next day or so, but this is not predicted to cause any major problems.

© Copyright, EmergencyNet NEWS Service, 1999. All Rights Reserved. Redistribution without permission is prohibited by law.