Kosovo's prime minister indicted for war crimes

Kosovo's prime minister said today he had been indicted by the UN war crimes court for his alleged part in atrocities during the fight against Serb forces and will resign.

Ramush Haradinaj told The Associated Press he would step down and travel to The Hague, Netherlands, where the court is based, to defend himself.

"I am one of those accused," he said, suggesting others also had been indicted.

"As a result of this indictment I have resigned from the post of Kosovo's prime minister," Haradinaj said, adding that he would voluntarily give himself up to court authorities in the Dutch city on Wednesday.

War crimes tribunal officials in The Hague refused comment on the case.

Haradinaj, in office for three months, was a senior commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army, the ethnic Albanian rebel group that fought Serb troops in the 1998-99 conflict that led to the province's present status as a UN protectorate.

UN war crimes investigators questioned him late last year for his role in Kosovo's war, during which he served as a commander of the ethnic Albanian rebels in the west of the province. He has denied involvement in any crimes.

Haradinaj is the second senior former rebel leader to be indicted by the tribunal. The UN war crimes court indicted Fatmir Limaj in 2003, and he is now on trial at The Hague for his role during the ethnic Albanian insurgency against Serb troops of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.

Still, Haradinaj's hero status during the Kosovo war and his present position as prime minister made his arrest much more significant than Limaj's.

Security was boosted as the news broke in apparent anticipation of trouble by Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority, which strongly backs Haradinaj. But no unrest was reported by early afternoon.

Col. Yves de Kermabon, the spokesman for the NATO-led peacekeepers in Kosovo, said 500 additional British troops arrived in Kosovo since Monday. NATO helicopters hovered over Pristina, the provincial capital, as its government went into session.

The UN mission administering Kosovo elevated its security threat level to "stage black" around the western Kosovo town of Pec because of a police operation, said U.N spokesman Hua Jiang, without elaborating. Jiang suggested others who have been indicted were in that region."Stage black" means only essential staff have to report for duty, she said.

Kosovo, which officially remains province of Serbia-Montenegro, has been administered by the United Nations and NATO since 1999, following the alliance's war aimed at halting a crackdown by Serb troops on ethnic Albanian rebels.

Its majority ethnic Albanian population wants independence, whereas the Serb minority insists it should remain part of Serbia.