Two police officers die in attack on UN car in Kosovo

Violence has flared again in Kosovo with gunmen killing two police officers and injuring a civilian colleague, in an ambush on a United Nations patrol car.

Violence has flared again in Kosovo with gunmen killing two police officers and injuring a civilian colleague, in an ambush on a United Nations patrol car.

The attack, suspected to be the work of Albanian nationalists, is viewed as an ominous development as it is the first time the security forces and the international agencies have been specifically targeted.

The two officers, a Kosovan and a Ghanaian attached to the UN, and their female interpreter, were said to be sitting in their car at Sakovica, near the northern city of Podujevo, when another car pulled up alongside and the occupants opened fire with Kalashnikov automatic rifles.

After the shooting on Tuesday night, security forces carried out raids yesterday across the former Yugoslav province. According to unconfirmed reports, arms and ammunition, including two rifles which may have been used in the ambush, were recovered.

UN staff and Nato's Kosovo's force (K-For) went on heightened alert after receiving information that other similar attacks may follow. About 150 international peace-keepers were injured during three days of violence last week but they were caught between Serbian and Albanian lines, rather than being targeted deliberately.

In Podujevo - a centre of Albanian resistance against the Belgrade government and a stronghold of the Kosovo Liberation Army - the headquarters of the police and K-For were being secured yesterday with barbed wire and sandbags. A Czech soldier on duty said: "We have been told we are in danger, that more attacks can take place. So we are taking precautions.''

The attack took place as a rally was held in Pristina, the Kosovan capital, to commemorate the start of the Nato bombing campaign which led to the withdrawal of Serbian forces from Kosovo in 1999. Nato forces, including British soldiers, were handed flowers by members of a several thousand strong crowd. But both UNMIK (the United Nations Mission in Kosovo) and K-For acknowledge the growing hostility from sections of the Albanian population which accuse them of colluding with the Serbian minority.

Nato troops were deployed to keep order during last week's riots in Kosovo but the UN police spokesman, Derek Chappell, insisted yesterday that there was "no evidence of linkage'' between that and the shooting of the policemen.

Another possible "provocation" could be the arrest by Nato troops last year of a former KLA leader in Podujevo, Rustam Mustafa, who was jailed on war crimes charges by a court with international judges in Pristina.

People living and working near the scene of the shooting - on the main road from Pristina to Podujevo - denied any knowledge of what had taken place. Some said they were too afraid to say anything.

At a garage festooned with with photographs of KLA "martyrs'', three young men maintained that no former members of the organisation, now allegedly disbanded, had taken part in the attack.

Hakan Emiri, who claimed to be a former KLA fighter, said: "UNMIK are very eager to persecute Kosovo soldiers who protected our people from the Serbs, but they do nothing against the Serbs when they do wrong. Since the troubles last week almost everyone they have arrested had been Albanian, not Serbs. There is a lot of anger at the moment against the UN and Nato, and, don't forget, a lot of men in Kosovo have guns.''

The violence resurfaced after Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign and security envoy, arrived in Pristina to discuss the latest crisis. A group of Serbs screamed at Mr Solana yesterday as he toured areas attacked by ethnic Albanians during the worst clashes in the province since the end of war in 1999. "I am appalled by the brutality of the actions," Mr Solana said after seeing some of the damage caused. "They did something that the international community cannot tolerate and will not tolerate."