KOSOVO: PRISTINA: BOMBING ATTACKS: SITUATION UPDATE

submitted by europelmbh on 03/10/16 1

Natural Sound After weeks of NATO bombing and raids by Serb forces, Kosova's capital, Pristina, was quiet on Sunday. Few people were on the streets - some collected bread and other supplies. Kosovo Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova has described Pristina as an empty, ghost town. He says six weeks after the NATO campaign began, Kosovo has been drained of people, both ethnic Albanians and Serbs. The streets of the once busy capital were largely deserted on Sunday. The Grand Hotel, where journalists were staying before they were forced from Pristina, has survived major damage but other buildings have been almost completely destroyed. Children are now playing in the ruins. NATO said on Sunday Kosovo Liberation Army guerrillas are helping to provide pockets of sanctuary for their ethnic Albanian kin displaced within Kosovo, and driven from towns like Pristina. NATO military spokesman General Walter Jertz told reporters in Brussels that as Serb military units are destroyed or driven into hiding, there has been a resurgence of (KLA) activity. Jertz said the KLA may be benefiting from NATO air strikes against Serb forces in Kosovo but denied the alliance was providing any support to the guerrillas. "We are not the air force of the KLA," he said. "We are not supporting the (KLA) either directly or indirectly." Last year, the separatist guerrillas controlled as much as a third of Kosovo but were beaten back and splintered in village-by-village operations by Serb forces before NATO began its bombing campaign against Yugoslavia on March 24. Meanwhile, the Russian envoy to the Balkans, Viktor Chernomyrdin, told reporters after talks late on Saturday with ethnic Albanian political leader Ibrahim Rugova that Rugova had called for autonomy for Kosovo and said the KLA should be disarmed. Rugova has previously advocated independence. His new stance, if confirmed, would be a major about-face. Chernomyrdin also said Rugova was ready to return to Belgrade to hold talks with Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic on the future of the separatist province. You can license this story through AP Archive: www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/2c00718d22b982059980a574a139550b Find out more about AP Archive: www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork

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