British troops fire on Serb crowd

British peacekeepers moved into Gracanica to calm the situation

British peacekeepers opened fire on a hostile crowd of Serbs, injuring at least one person, in the Serbian town of Gracanica in Kosovo on Tuesday.

The troops' commander, Brigadier Richard Shirref, had been surrounded as he tried to calm a crowd several hundred strong, angered by a grenade attack in the town's market place.

We were attacked, we had to fire to protect ourselves

Brigadier Richard Shirref

Five people were wounded in the attack in which two grenades were thrown from a passing car.

A British military spokesman, Flight Lieutenant Rob Hannam, said the troops believed they and the brigadier, who is responsible for security in the town, were in imminent danger.

He said troops fired warning shots into the air. When that failed to disperse the demonstrators, one or more of the soldiers fired into the crowd.

Flt Lt Hanam said the soldiers actions were within their rules of engagement.

Serb villagers sit in a bar near the burned out remains of an Albanian-owned car

Brigadier Shirref later said: "We were attacked, we had to fire shots to protect ourselves."

Peacekeepers originally said three people had been injured in the incident but later said just one person had been hurt.

Yugoslavia's private Beta news agency reported four wounded in the shooting and eight in the market place attack.

Market attack

The violence started when two grenades were thrown from a passing car into an outdoor market where Serbs were shopping.

The Serbs, who blamed Kosovo Albanians for the violence, started searching cars on the road through the town.

Doctors treat an Albanian man injured by Serbians after the market place grenade attack

A number of vehicles were set on fire and two Albanians were reportedly wounded.

Gracanica is one of the few remaining Serb enclaves in Kosovo.

Local Serb leaders say they have repeatedly warned the international peacekeepers that the market place is vulnerable but they say the Nato-led peacekeepers have found no solutions to the problem.

But peacekeepers say, short of regularly stopping and searching every car, there is little they can do to stop this kind of attack.

'Too lax'

In a statement on Tuesday, the Russian foreign ministry also criticised peacekeepers in Kosovo for being lax on ethnic violence against Serbs.

The Nato-led peacekeeping force "clearly are not using the resources at their disposal to stabilise the situation in Kosovo, in accordance with Security Council resolution 1244", the statement said.

The resolution governs how the United Nations should run the Yugoslav province.

A series of attacks in the British- and American-controlled sectors of Kosovo, including drive-by shootings and a hit and run accident, have left eight Serbs dead in the past week.