There are reports of fresh military action by the security forces in the Serbian province of Kosovo.

A spokesman for the international monitoring mission in Kosovo, quoted by Reuters news agency, said that Serbian forces, including tanks, have massed in the north of the province where the sound of machine-gun fire has been heard.

The Kosovo Information Centre, which is run by ethnic Albanians, says heavy Serb military and police forces have begun a sweeping attack on a number of villages near the town of Podujevo, about thirty kilometres north of the provincial capital, Pristina.