EmergencyNet NEWS Service-Tuesday, April 20, 1999-10:44CDT

CRISIS NEWS BRIEFS

ALBANIA (EmergencyNet News) - Aid officials were puzzled on Tuesday over the sudden drying up of the stream of refugees out of Kosovo, uncertain whether border fighting had stopped the flow or Serbs had blocked it. Refugees reported thousands still on the move within Kosovo. But fewer than 150 made it across on Monday. After a weekend in which tens of thousands of ethnic Albanians poured out of the southern Serbian province, the only ones to cross into Albania Monday were a few cars and trucks full of people and an old man on foot. In Macedonia, only 30 made it. The U.N. refugee agency spokesman in Kukes said it was unclear if the Serbs were preventing people from reaching the border.

SERBIA (EmergencyNet News) - NATO bombers blasted Yugoslavia on Tuesday pursuing an air war that seemed unable to ease the plight of ethnic Albanians trapped in the hills and forests of Kosovo. The Yugoslav Tanjug news agency said NATO attacked industrial targets in Nis, the Balkan country's third biggest city.

SERBIA (EmergencyNet News) - NATO blasted communications sites and military garrisons on Tuesday as U.S. helicopters and troops headed toward Albania to bolster the alliance's ability to destroy Yugoslav ground forces. NATO also sought a new promise of cooperation from Bulgaria, hoping to use its airspace in the campaign to force Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to sign a peace plan for Kosovo. The Bulgarian premier was traveling to NATO headquarters on Wednesday to work out a deal. In Washington, U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright moved to act against Yugoslav forces, trying to persuade her fellow foreign ministers to cut off shipments of refined oil to Yugoslavia.

From the ERRI Watch Center

SERBIA (EmergencyNet News) - Serbian media said that Belgrade's air raid sirens sounded the all clear on Tuesday morning, marking the end of the latest wave of NATO attacks on industrial and communications targets in at least ten central and south Serbian towns. The all-clear sounded at 0625 hours Belgrade time., just as the Yugoslav news agency Tanjug was reporting a NATO attack on the south Serbian town of Kursumlija.

Tanjung said: "Between 3:40 and 4:50 a.m. more than 15 missiles fell on the center of Kursumlija." Tanjug reported the heaviest bombardments of the night on Serbia's third largest city Nis, in the southeast. Another Tanjung report quoted a head of a local civil defense force who said: "This morning at 1:25 a.m., NATO aircraft hit the Donja Bistrica bridge twice." Tanjug said explosions were heard in the Batajnica district of Belgrade at about 0250 hours. Batajnica houses a military base and was last attacked Saturday night.

A large factory in the central Serbian town of Valjevo was reported hit by seven missiles at 0317 hours, the third time the 'Krusik' factory had been attacked since the bombing campaign began on 24 March.

Tanjung said NATO missiles had hit the Belacevac mines, west of Pristina, and that blasts were also heard in the village of Lukare, northwest of the regional capital.

Tanjug also said NATO aircraft had attacked the central Serbian city of Kragujevac, home of the massive Zastava car plant targeted in earlier raids, but gave no further details.

It said Mount Zlatibor, a ski resort 120 miles south of Belgrade, was hit by eight explosions between 2310 and 2315 hours Monday. Hilltops in Yugoslavia are often sites for communications links. The news agency also said NATO had fired four missiles at a satellite ground station in Prilike near Ivanjica, in central Serbia at 2245 hours Monday.

CANADA (EmergencyNet News) - In what many in the intelligence and military communities would call an irresponsible act by a government official, Conservative MP David Price reportedly said that Canadian commandos have been operating in Kosovo, gathering intelligence and doing targeting work for the air war. The claim was denied by Canadian Defense Minister Art Eggleton, who bluntly labeled Price "irresponsible," in regard to the incident.

Price, who raised the issue in the Canadian House, elaborated later outside the chamber and insisted he had been tipped by a "very, very solid" military source. He said: "They're working with the KLA, they're gathering intelligence, they're doing targeting.... We don't have a number, but I would guesstimate that we're talking somewhere probably in the 50-ish area [number of troops deployed]."

Price, the Tory defense critic, said the soldiers are members of Joint Task Force 2, a top-secret Canadian Forces contingent that normally specializes in anti-terrorist and special security work. More than one defense analyst said that regardless of Mr. Price's political positions and/or rights to free speech, that his comments may have placed Canadian troops in jeopardy and even compromised NATO operational security.

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