KOSOVO: SERB POLICE EXCHANGE FIRE WITH MILITANT ALBANIANS

(17 May 1998) Albanian/Nat
Serb police exchanged fire on Sunday with militant Kosovo Albanians seeking independence.
Serb sources said one officer was wounded and an undetermined number of what they described as "terrorists" killed or wounded.
Meanwhile ethnic Albanians protested in Pristina, Kosovo, against Serbian rule, demanding international intervention in their conflict with Belgrade's authorities.
Serb police stood watch warily on the main road west of Pristina following reports of a gun battle in a nearby village.
In Iglarevo, a village 45 kilometres (25 miles) west of Pristina, militants who say they belong to Kosovo Liberation Army or K-L-A exchanged fire on Sunday with Serb police.
The group has claimed responsibility for killing dozens of Serbs and ethnic Albanians loyal to the government.
The K-L-A controlled area makes up an estimated 40 per cent of Kosovo.
The major east-west road in the Serb province that runs through the area has been closed by police for more than a week.
Police at a sandbagged checkpoint at Kijevo, about one and a half kilometres (about a mile) east of Iglarevo, refused to let reporters through to the site of the attack, saying it was too dangerous.
Reporters, overhearing police reports on the Kijevo squad's radios, heard units speaking of scattered attacks by Kosovo Albanian militants in other parts of the K-L-A controlled region.
There was no way to independently confirm the radio reports.
Much of the road leading west from Pristina was empty, with nearby villages either deserted or their inhabitants shuttered inside their homes.
The latest violence further dampened hopes of a negotiated settlement to the Kosovo crisis, fueled by ethnic Albanian demands for independence and Serb determination to hold on to the province.
Ethnic Albanians say towns like Podujevo, located along the Serb border, could become a flash point.
Ethnic Albanians say they are angry about the checkpoints in villages like this one where they claim Serb police target ethnic Albanians and thus trade traffic through the region.
One truck driver said on Sunday that the checkpoints were further fuelling local anger against the Serb authorities.
SOUNDBITE: (Albanian)
''We were stopped on the road. They (police) are not right at all (to stop us). Politics is politics and we, the working class, have to live off something."
SUPER CAPTION: Albanian Truck Driver
Meanwhile in Pristina, ethnic Albanians marched on Sunday in the second protest over Serb rule in as many days.
They were expressing their support for Ibrahim Rugova, leader of Kosovo's separatist ethnic Albanians.
Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and Rugova bowed to U-S pressure and met for the first time on Friday.
But they agreed to nothing beyond authorising working groups from both sides to meet weekly.
More than 150 people have died since the police launched a crackdown on the K-L-A earlier this year.

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