Serbia police wounded near Kosovo

Two Serbian policemen have been wounded in an attack in the south of the country, the interior ministry says.

The policemen, from a special unit, were lightly injured when a rocket-propelled grenade hit their vehicle.

The attack took place in the Presevo valley, which has an ethnic Albanian majority and borders Kosovo.

Ethnic Albanian militants based in the area have tried to link up with their compatriots in Kosovo, which declared independence from Serbia last year.

At the end of Belgrade's war with Nato over Kosovo in 1999, the Serbian government had to agree not only to the withdrawal of its security forces from the province, but also to the establishment of a 5km (3 mile) demilitarised zone along the shared border.

The buffer zone provided the opportunity for ethnic Albanians in the Presevo valley to launch an armed campaign against Serbian rule, which peaked in 2001 before a peace plan granted them more rights.

Correspondents say the area remains tense with occasional incidents.