U.N. and Kosovo Policemen Killed in Patrol Attack

24/03/2004| IslamWeb

A United Nations policeman and a Kosovo police officer were killed in an attack on a U.N. car near Pristina late on Tuesday, the chief of Kosovo police said. The attack, in the village of Luzane some 12 miles north of the Kosovo capital, followed two days of relative quiet in a region that was shaken by Albanian-Serb ethnic violence this month. Twenty-eight people were killed in fighting. "In an attack against a police patrol, two policemen were killed -- one international and one local," Kosovo police chief Sheremet Ahmetli said. "This is very sad for Kosovo." An interpreter with the patrol was lightly wounded. A Kosovo police source said a saloon car pulled up alongside a marked red-and-white United Nations car and gunmen fired at it with rifles. The patrol returned fire but the attackers fled. It was not immediately known who the attackers were. In the worst flare-up of violence since NATO and the United Nations established control of the province in 1999, Albanian crowds attacked and torched Serb villages and churches last week, forcing 3,200 to flee. U.N. police estimate a total of 51,000 people were involved in 33 riots across the province of two million people. Serbia says the attacks aimed to "ethnically cleanse" Kosovo of remaining Serbs, estimated to number less than 100,000. NATO rushed in 2,000 more troops to help quell the violence. Its peacekeeping force, now over 20,000-strong, appeared to have reasserted control of Kosovo over the weekend. **PHOTO CAPTION*** A Kosovo police officer patrols the area where two other police officers were shot dead while patrolling by car, in Sakovica, a village some 15 miles north of the capital Pristina on Wednesday, March 23, 2004. (AP Photo/Pier Paolo Cito)