Yugoslavia beefs up buffer force

Yugoslav troops now control more than half the zone

By Nick Thorpe in Belgrade

Yugoslav security forces have reoccupied, with Nato approval, a large section of the flashpoint buffer zone around the troubled province of Kosovo.

More than 1,000 soldiers and police, accompanied by armoured cars, entered the zone at separate points.

As they did so reports from Belgrade said ethnic Albanian rebels had attacked several police checkpoints in southern Serbia, injuring one police officer near the village of Cerevajka.

The buffer zone borders at one end with Macedonia and at the other with Albania, and has been used by the guerrillas for attacks on both Serbian and Macedonian targets.

Yugoslav army commanders now control more than half the buffer zone, a thin five-kilometre-wide strip of land along the outside edges of Kosovo.

As darkness fell on Sunday evening, they had every reason to feel contented.

Forced out of the area by Nato under the Military Technical Agreement which ended the bombing of Yugoslavia in June, 1999, they have now been welcomed back in by Nato commanders.

Local knowledge

With a new government installed in Belgrade, Nato has come to see Yugoslav forces as a factor of stability in the region.

Buffer rules

Villages out of bounds

No shelling, without Nato consent

No helicopters

No mines

No rocket launchers

Mortars allowed

Their return to sectors A and C of the buffer zone is of strategic as well as symbolic importance.

Albanian guerrillas still operate from bases in sectors B and D - guerrillas with close contacts to their compatriots fighting the Macedonian army just across the border.

Yugoslav forces know the terrain far better than Nato's soldiers stationed inside Kosovo.

Nato commanders hope their return will encourage radical Albanians, both in southern Serbia and in Macedonia, to seek a peaceful solution to their grievances.