Soldiers from the Dutch peace-keeping contingent in Orahovac have threatened to carry out house-to-house searches to find arms. They are reported to have obtained local police lists of Serbs with weapons.

The Dutch unit wants to gather up the unauthorised arms before handing over the town to Russian troops on Monday.

The town's Kosovo Albanians are objecting to the military switch because they say the Russians favour Serbs.

About 120 weapons were surrendered in one day

However, many Serbs say only the Russians can protect them from growing reprisal attacks by Albanians.

Orahovac was the scene of heavy fighting between Serbs and Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) forces last year.

Nato extended Saturday night's deadline for the weapons to be given in because of the large number in circulation.

The Dutch commander in Orahovac, Lt-Col Ton van Loon, said: "The operation is going much better than we expected. I think they are trying to hand in everything they have."

But there were ominous warnings from the KLA ahead of Monday's change.

The BBC's Paul Wood: "The UN has less than a complete success"

A senior commander with the KLA predicted unrest when Russian peace-keeping troops arrive.

The commander, Brigadier Izmet Tara, said local people would block the roads to stop Russian armoured vehicles entering the town.

He said the KLA would not organise anti-Russian demonstrators but would supervise them and would, as he put it, do whatever was necessary to protect the Kosovo demonstrators from the Russians in case of any trouble.

Our correspondent Paul Wood said local Albanians had told him there had been lots of Russians working with Serb paramilitaries and that they had helped to commit war crimes.

This belief is widespread among the Albanian population of Ohraovac.

A Serbian woman watches the arms surrender

Meanwhile, the United Nations administrator for Kosovo, Bernard Kouchner, says the possibility of regrouping ethnic Serbs still living in the province is still on the agenda.

He said the issue will be raised at Wednesday's meeting of the Transitional Council - the body aimed at bringing all sides in the province together for talks on its future.

Mr Kouchner was responding to a proposal put to the council on Saturday by a Serb representative, Momcilio Trajkovic, to split Kosovo into three cantons, which he said would maintain its multi-ethnic character.

Correspondents say Mr Kouchner has raised such a possibility several times recently as a way of better protecting the estimated 30,000 Serbs still in Kosovo.