Fighting among ethnic Albanians and Serbians which left three dead in the deeply divided Kosovo town of Mitrovica has eased after an appeal for calm.

The commander of the Nato-led peacekeeping force (K-For) in Kosovo's northern military sector, French General Pierre de Saqui de Sannes, met leaders of both communities and asked them to stop the tit-for-tat violence.

They did as they were asked, a spokesman said.

"The situation then calmed progressively," added the spokesman.

K-For said on Friday they were reinforcing their presence in the town.

Simmering tension

The sectarian violence began on Thursday when two Kosovo Albanian men were shot dead. Shortly after a grenade was thrown at a popular café in the Serb part of town.

As the violence escalated an Albanian woman was shot in the northern part of town. That incident was followed by an attack on a second Serb café. In both grenade attacks up to 15 people were injured.

K-For spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Patrick Chanliau, said around 500 Serbs later gathered in the Serb-dominated northern half of the divided city after the grenade attack and clashed with ethnic Albanians, injuring six people.

Several properties were also set on fire in the course of the evening, the spokesman said. Troops blocked the city's two main bridges to prevent the Serbs from entering Albanian-dominated southern Mitrovica.

Local community leaders and international officials had feared the attack on the bus on a remote mountain road about 15km (nine miles) southwest of Mitrovica could spark reprisals and fuel a new cycle of violence in the province.

And UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called for extra UN police after the Kosovo bus attack.

He said in a statement it was his "deep conviction that, for as long as any single community in Kosovo lives in fear because of their ethnic or religious background, none can resume their normal life for which they have waited for so long."

And he appealed to member states "to urgently contribute direly needed resources and police to UNMIK (the UN interim administration mission in Kosovo)."

Unrest triggered

The unrest was triggered after the UN bus attack which killed two Serbs.

UNHCR Special Envoy Dennis McNamara visited the scene and said: "This is just the sort the thing that we don't need, the Serbs don't need and Kosovo doesn't need," Mr McNamara said.