Assault On The Serbs: The Timetable

Thursday 25 March

5.15pm: Stealth fighter bombers take off from Nato air base at Aviano, north-eastern Italy.

7.00pm: Nato fires new round of ship-launched cruise missiles.

7.05pm: Two big explosions are heard outside Pristina.

7.50pm: Pristina is plunged into darkness.

8.50pm: Blackout in Belgrade after impact north and south of city.

9.30pm: A large army barracks at Urosevac in southern Kosovo is heavily bombed.

Friday 26 March

00.25am: Yugoslavian news agency says Yugoslavia has shot down two Nato warplanes south of Novi Sad.

9.00am: US B-52 bombers, loaded with cruise missiles, take off from RAF Fairford.

10.00am: Reports by Albania's news agency that Serbian forces have massacred 20 ethnic Albanian village teachers in front of their pupils in the border village of Dobrune in Kosovo.

11.00am: The Italian government declares a state of emergency for the southern region of Puglia in readiness for a possible influx of ethnic Albanian refugees fleeing Yugoslavia.

10.25am: Air-raid sirens sound in Novi Sad in northern Serbia.

10.45am: Air-raid sirens sound in Pristina.

11.30am: UNHCR expresses grave concern about Kosovo civilians due to the pullout of international officials who had been trying to protect them.

12.30pm: Six fully armed F-16 Nato fighter jets take off from the Aviano air base in Italy.

1.10pm: Second wave of US B-52 bombers takes off from RAF Fairford.

1.20pm: A Tomahawk missile is fired from a US warship off the Croatian coast for the first time in daylight since the beginning of air strikes against Yugoslavia.

3.00pm: Nato officials announce that allied aircraft have flown 400 sorties against Yugoslavia and have struck 50 targets, all air defence and related facilities.

4.00pm: Nato bombs hit the suburbs of Belgrade.

4.45pm: Russia fails to get UN Security Council to demand an end to Nato strikes.