EmergencyNet NEWS Service-Sunday, April 11, 1999-10:07CDT

CRISIS NEWS BRIEFS

SERBIA (EmergencyNet News) - NATO warplanes pounded targets in Kosovo and central Serbia on early Sunday, hours after the U.S. and Britain said they were deploying more warplanes and an aircraft carrier to intensify the air campaign against Yugoslavia. Serbian state television said NATO missiles hit the area around the Kosovo provincial capital Pristina at 0100 hours local time (2400 GMT). There were no immediate reports on casualties or damage.

WASHINGTON (EmergencyNet News) - The Pentagon has announced that 82 U.S. planes will join NATO forces now conducting airstrikes over Yugoslavia. Allies were expected to add dozens more aircraft within days. Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon said: "The addition of these aircraft will allow us to ... expand the number of strikes over any 24-hour-day period." But it could take a month for 24 Apache attack helicopters to be ready for use from a base in Albania. Their introduction would mark an escalation of the war and for the first time allow close-to-the-ground, direct strikes against Serb troops and tanks during persistent bad weather.

WASHINGTON (EmergencyNet News) - U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was to fly to Europe Sunday for urgent talks  with NATO and Russian foreign ministers on the allied air campaign against Yugoslavia that shows no signs of an early end and increasingly threatens ties with Moscow. Albright was headed first to Brussels, home of NATO headquarters.

From the ERRI Watch Center

SERBIA (EmergencyNet News) - Just hours after the United States and Britain said they were deploying more warplanes and an aircraft carrier to intensify the air campaign against Yugoslavia, NATO warplanes pounded targets in Kosovo and central Serbia early Sunday. Serbian state television said NATO missiles hit the area around the Kosovo provincial capital Pristina at 0100 hours local time (0000 GMT). There were no immediate reports on casualties or damage. It was the second NATO air raid on Pristina in less than 24 hours, despite worsening weather which NATO said could hamper its attacks.

The Pentagon said on Saturday 82 more warplanes were being sent to Europe to enable NATO to "expand the number of strikes over any 24-hour period and give us more deep-strike capacity as necessary." Pentagon spokesman Ken Bacon said the extra planes would include 24 F-16s and four tank-busting A-10 Thunderbolts.

Britain said HMS Invincible would join NATO forces as "part of tightening the screw" on Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. The Belgrade-based news agency Beta said early Sunday NATO warplanes had bombed the central Serbian town of Kraljevo. It said two explosions were heard near the town. Serbian television also said NATO missiles blasted military targets in the towns of Prizren and Urosevac, in southern Kosovo. NATO bombs reportedly caused "considerable" damage in the western town of Pec, located near the border with Albania. On

Saturday night, several thousand Kosovo refugees streamed into northern Albania after Yugoslavia reopened its main border crossing and carried out another wave of expulsions. The latest wave reported seeing Serb tanks concealed in the ruins of abandoned homes, apparently hiding from NATO planes.

In the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia, state television reported that 1,300 new arrivals had crossed its frontier from Yugoslavia on Saturday.

In Washington on Saturday, top national security advisers met at the White House to discuss Kosovo. They included National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Cohen, CIA Director George Tenet, top Balkan negotiator Richard Holbrooke and Army Gen. Henry Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Cohen also met at the Pentagon Saturday with Canadian Defense Minister Art Eggleton.

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