War in the Balkans: Timetable

Sunday 4 April

10pm: US says it plans to send Apache ground attack helicopters and about 2,000 support troops to Albania to join Nato air strikes.

10.30pm: Nato aircraft and missiles demolish an army headquarters and hit oil refineries and other targets in and around Belgrade. Reports say Slatina airfield southeast of Pristina has been hit.

Monday 5 April

12.20am: Nato missiles strike at Belgrade's main airport and targets in Kosovo.

1am: Tony Blair says in an article `The Sun': "There is no question of Nato ground forces being sent in unless it is to police an agreed political settlement."

11.50am: Robin Cook says there will be no peace in Kosovo until ethnic cleansing is reversed.

Noon: Five French planes carrying humanitarian aid for ethnic Albanian refugees leave for Macedonia and Albania. They are the first of a fleet of 15 expected to carry clothing, food, tents and medical supplies.

1pm: Serbian state television (RTS) shows footage of a meeting in Pristina between moderate Kosovo Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova and the Russian ambassador to Belgrade. RTS does not specify when the meeting took place.

2pm: Nato says 31 relief flights are to go to Albania and Macedonia to help the 360,000 ethnic Albanians who have been driven from Kosovo over the past two weeks.

2.30pm: Russia says it will send clothes, food and medicine worth more than $1m (pounds 600,000) to Yugoslavia to help people of all ethnic groups.

3pm: The UN World Food Programme says three US aircraft with food for refugees will leave Italy for Albania and the flights will increase to 10 a day later this week.

5.30pm: Reports emerge that refugees fleeing to Montenegro from Mitrovica, Kosovo's third biggest city, have been forced into Serbia after Nato bombers destroyed a road bridge at Montenegro's eastern border.

6pm: The Albanian government announces it is refusing to allow ethnic Albanian refugees to be evacuated to other countries as this would make Albania part of the ethnic-cleansing mechanism.