-Caveat Lector-
NATO Probes Strike on Civilians
By CANDICE HUGHES
.c The Associated Press
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (AP) -- NATO acknowledged today its jets struck a
village where dozens of ethnic Albanian refugees were reported killed but
said it was going after ``military positions'' there.
Yugoslav media reported Friday that 84 people were killed and 56 injured
after NATO jets attacked Korisa, where 500 ethnic Albanians were spending the
night. Survivors said they had spent weeks in a nearby forest hiding from
Serb forces before stopping in the village.
The 19-nation alliance issued a statement today after an overnight review
describing the village as ``a legitimate military target.''
``NATO identified Korisa as a military camp and command post,'' the alliance
said. ``Military equipment including an armored personnel carrier and more
than 10 pieces of artillery were observed at this location. The aircraft
observed dug-in military positions at the target before executing the
attack.''
The statement said NATO could not confirm the casualty figures given by the
Serb authorities, nor the reasons why civilians were at the location at the
time of the attack.
``NATO deeply regrets accidental civilian casualties that were caused by this
attack,'' it said.
NATO spokesman Jamie Shea, talking to the British Broadcasting Corp.,
suggested that the refugees may have been used as human shields to protect
military equipment deployed in the village.
``One of the problems we have is that we are up against an adversary who is
without any scruples when it comes to mixing his armed forces in with
internally displaced persons ... and even ... using these as human shields on
bridges,'' Shea said.
``But we have to attack those forces because otherwise we cannot stop the
ethnic cleansing,'' he added.
Milisav Paic, a spokesman for the Yugoslav foreign ministry, dismissed claims
that Serbs were using refugees as human shields.
``There is no doubt it was NATO who carried out the raids against civilians
and they cannot just simply try to get rid of any responsibility,'' he said.
Reporters taken to Korisa, near Prizren in southern Kosovo, saw dozens of
bodies. Tractors lay charred and wrecked, some still burning hours after the
attack. Two craters, apparently caused by bombs, were visible on the
roadside.
Amid wrecked buildings and smoldering tractors, a group of 50 crying women
and children huddled in the cellar of a village home, trying to decide what
to do next.
``I don't know the exact number (killed). Many. Everyone was sleeping,'' said
one dazed survivor, Feriz Emini.
On April 14, 75 refugees were killed when NATO mistakenly attacked a convoy
near Djakovica. NATO admits other accidental strikes against a residential
neighborhood in Nis; a civilian bus on a bridge in Kosovo; a passenger train;
a village in southern Serbia; and most notably the Chinese Embassy in
Belgrade.
At the U.N. headquarters in New York, the Security Council adopted a
statement which expresses the council's ``profound regrets over the bombing
and deep sorrow for the loss of lives, injuries and property damage caused by
the bombing.''
An agreement on the statement's wording was reached only after hours of
debate, which revealed deep divisions between NATO countries and Russia and
China.
Nevertheless, NATO kept up its offensive today, striking targets across
Kosovo in what state-run media called ``ceaseless'' raids.
NATO said today it hit a ``full range'' of Serbian ground forces, both in
Kosovo and in Serbia. Overnight, NATO aircraft flew 592 sorties with more
than half the strikes aimed at the Yugoslav air defense system, a NATO
statement said.
Other targets included tanks, armored vehicles, artillery pieces, radars,
airfields, bridges, munition and petroleum storage sites as well as army
troops.
The state-run Tanjug news agency reported that NATO forces struck
unidentified targets near Prizren, Djakovica and Lipljan on Friday night. It
also said NATO jets were active in the skies over the provincial capital,
Pristina.
NATO wants the total withdrawal of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's
forces from Kosovo, a province of Yugoslavia's Serb republic, and the return
of the refugees, as well as the deployment of an international peacekeeping
force.
About 780,000 ethnic Albanians have left Kosovo, which had a prewar
population of 2 million, since NATO bombings aimed at forcing Milosevic to
accept a Western-dictated peace plan began March 24.
NATO reported its heaviest bombing of the seven-week air campaign against
Yugoslavia from Thursday night to Friday morning. The alliance said it
concentrated attacks against the 40,000 Serb troops and special police in
Kosovo, hitting heavy armor and arms supplies hidden in tunnels. Bombing was
particularly intense around Prizren.
During daylight attacks, NATO warplanes roared over Kosovo and other parts of
Serbia, hitting two military barracks, state-controlled media reported.
At Kargujevac, where the barracks is in the middle of the central Serbian
city, two missiles slammed into the building, detonating huge explosions and
sending palls of smoke across the city, the private news agency Beta
reported. Missiles also struck five bridges in Kosovo.
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