EmergencyNet NEWS Service-Friday, April 16, 1999-09:56CDT 

CRISIS NEWS BRIEFS

MONTENEGRO (EmergencyNet News) - More ethnic Albanians are expected to cross over into Macedonia and Albania today. on Thursday, thousands made the move, in what observers believe may be a final push by Yugoslav forces to rid Kosovo of its ethnic Albanian population. Meanwhile, NATO today continues pounding military targets in the Yugoslav republic of Montenegro, hitting key sites around Belgrade.

NEW YORK CITY (EmergencyNet News) - The New York Times was reporting on Friday that the Pentagon intends to ask POTUS to activate as many as 33,000 reservists and National Guard troops to strengthen the attack on Yugoslavia. The request, which is expected before Monday, will come after a week in which NATO has intensified its air raids and asked for an extra 300 aircraft from the United States, bringing its total fleet to 1,100 planes.

SERBIA (EmergencyNet News) - NATO bombed a munitions dump and targets around Belgrade on Friday, pursuing its air war against Yugoslavia despite admitting it may have mistakenly hit civilians in Kosovo. But a NATO official denied a Yugoslav news agency report that alliance missiles had struck a refugee center overnight in the Serbian town of Paracin.

SWITZERLAND (EmergencyNet News) - The United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, said Friday Yugoslav authorities had resumed expulsions of ethnic Albanians from Kosovo "with full force" and  seemed intent on driving all of them out of the province. UNHCR spokesman Kris Janowski told a news briefing: "The expulsions which were put on hold or slowed down over the last two weeks have now resumed with full force. The effort by the Serb authorities to expel the entire ethnic population of Kosovo is again under way."

From the ERRI Watch Center

SERBIA (EmergencyNet News) - NATO warplanes bombed a munitions dump and targets around Belgrade on Friday, pursuing its air war against Yugoslavia despite admitting it may have mistakenly hit civilians in Kosovo. But a NATO official denied a Yugoslav news agency report that alliance missiles had struck a refugee center overnight in the Serbian town of Paracin. The official Tanjug news agency said the refugees were in shelters during the raid and escaped injury.

At NATO military headquarters in Mons, Belgium, an official said alliance aircraft had struck an ammunition dump in the vicinity of Paracin and a radio relay station 20 miles away. Paracin is about 95 miles south of Belgrade.

The New York Times reported Friday that the Pentagon intended to ask POTUS to activate as many as 33,000 reservists and National Guard troops to strengthen the attack on Yugoslavia. The request, which is expected before Monday, comes after a week in which NATO has intensified its air raids and asked for an extra 300 aircraft from the United States, bringing its total air armada to 1,100.

Citing senior military and administration officials, the newspaper said a vast majority of those called up will be in the Air Force Reserve or Air National Guard. These may be pilots or aircraft crew members.

Belgrade's sky was lit up by anti-aircraft fire as NATO planes flew over the city overnight. Tanjug said the city's suburb of Rakovica was hit by two missiles and it also reported an attack on Belgrade's Pancevo oil refinery. For the first time, NATO hit targets near the Hungarian border.

Four explosions were reported in the northern Serbian town of Subotica, just eight miles from Hungary.

With no letup in its air campaign against Yugoslavia, NATO jets and missiles hit a military airfield and airport just outside Podgorica, the Montenegrin capital, early today. Overnight airstrikes went on into the daylight hours in Kosovo, where Tanjug reported strong blasts in and around the provincial capital of Pristina at midmorning.

Tanjug reported "significant" damage in civilian areas when more than ten missiles fell on the village of Mrsac, six miles west of the central Serbian town of Kraljevo. But it did not immediately report any casualties.

Thousands of ethnic Albanians have been crossing over into Macedonia and Albania in what observers believe may be a final push by Yugoslav forces to rid Kosovo of its ethnic Albanian population. Up to 5,000 refugees poured across Macedonia's three border posts overnight.

It was being reported on Thursday that Yugoslavia has stockpiled chemicals that could be used as weapons and POTUS promised a swift response to any chemical attack. Yugoslavia has made no threats to use deadly chemical weapons and Pentagon officials said they have no intelligence indicating that Belgrade has any such plans.

Speaking in San Francisco to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, the President said U.S. intelligence has been closely watching Belgrade's chemical agent supply. The most recent independent reports considered highly reliable by U.S. intelligence indicate that the Belgrade government of Slobodan Milosevic inherited most of the chemical weapons program from the communist era prior to the breakup of Yugoslavia. The stock of agents allegedly includes sarin nerve gas, the blister agent sulfur mustard and the incapacitating agent BZ.

Kevin Kavanaugh of the Federation of American Scientists, a Washington-based think tank that follows defense and intelligence matters, said Kosovo Liberation Army rebels battling Serb regulars in southwestern Kosovo reported they were attacked with grenades containing BZ. The gas is intended to create debilitating hallucinogenic effects on soldiers, rendering them helpless. U.S. defense and intelligence officials consider BZ to be a riot control agent, not a chemical weapon.

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