PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (AP) — Scattered skirmishes broke out over the weekend between government forces and ethnic Albanian militants fighting to free the province of Kosovo from Serbia, both sides said today.
The official Tanjug news agency reported two attacks by militants this morning on the Pec-Decani road in western Kosovo. Two Serbs, including a reserve policeman, were wounded when their car came under fire in one attack.
The militants want Kosovo independent from Serbia, the republic that with Montenegro makes up Yugoslavia. The fighters belong to the clandestine Kosovo Liberation Army, which has claimed responsibility for the killings of dozens of Serbs and pro-Serb ethnic Albanians.
Nearly 200 people have been killed in police actions and sporadic skirmishes since early March in Kosovo, where ethnic Albanians make up 90 percent of the population.
Serbian and ethnic Albanian politicians opened talks last week to end the crisis peacefully, but fighting has continued in the province, which the government rules with a heavy military and police presence.
Also today, ethnic Albanian sources reported heavy fighting in the Drenica region in central Kosovo, the scene of a Serbian police crackdown that killed more than eighty people in early March.
Meanwhile, the Yugoslav army reported that militants using mortars, snipers and rocket launchers attacked a convoy Sunday that was carrying supplies for units on the Albanian border.
The army statement, carried by Tanjug today, said the army “neutralized” the attack and said it suffered no casualties.