Why violence has erupted now

Tension has escalated in the last two years since the emergence of the clandestine Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in 1996.

Most Albanians want a peaceful solution to the crisis

The shadow Albanian administration is not in favour of achieving change through violent means, but its failure to win any concessions from President Milosevic has encouraged groups like the KLA.

It has claimed responsibility for several attacks in which over 50 people were killed.

Earlier this year, the KLA also claimed responsibility for an attack in neighbouring Macedonia, which - if confirmed - would mark the widening of its theatre of action.

The KLA is believed to be funded by Albanian exiles in Germany and Switzerland using arms smuggled from Albania.

It is the actions of this group, which has so far received no political backing from the ethnic Albanian leadership, that have led to the Serbian police crackdown in Kosovo.

International community tries to mediate

Slobidan Milosevic: uncompromising attitude to Kosovo

The US envoy Robert Gelbard visited the province in late February, less than a week before the violence, to try to mediate but came away empty-handed.

He indicated that while some international sanctions against Serbia were lifted after the signing of the Dayton peace accords in 1995, the so-called 'outer-wall' of sanctions which came into force in 1991 will continue until Belgrade grants greater self-rule to Kosovo.

These bar Yugoslavia from membership of international financial institutions and access to vital western credit.

British foreign secretary Robin Cook also talked with Mr Milosevic on behalf of the EC in early March, but made no progress.

The Contact Group of Western powers has said that it favours neither the status quo nor independence for Kosovo, but an enhanced status within Yugoslavia.

Diplomatic failure could be disastrous

The nightmare scenario for NATO and other observers is instability in Kosovo spilling into neighbouring Albania and Macedonia, where ethnic Albanians make up about a quarter of the population.

In turn, this could spread trouble to Greece and to Turkey, although this is less likely now than at the peak of the Yugoslav civil war.