NATO Puts North Kosovo Under NATO Military Law

The violence was the worst since Kosovo`s Albanian majority declared independence from Serbia on Feb. 17.

NATO placed the Kosovo town of Mitrovica under de facto military law on Tuesday after riots by a hostile Serb population killed one U.N. policeman and forced the pullout of U.N. personnel.

The NATO-led peacekeeping force KFOR and the United Nations mission ordered all local Kosovo Serb police officers to park their patrol cars and suspend normal duties.

With U.N. police already withdrawn, the order left French, Belgian and Spanish troops in sole control of law and order in the northern slice of Kosovo, where Serbs opposed to its Feb 17 secession from Serbia dominate the population.

"KFOR have put north Mitrovica under 'military law'," said a Kosovo security source who asked not to be named. There was no immediate announcement from KFOR.

At the main police station, three dozen Kosovo Serb police officers carried their holdalls and flak jackets out past Belgian armoured cars guarding the perimeter to the parking lot.

"Following yesterday's events KFOR has taken over authority for north Mitrovica and occupied the northern police station. U.N. police have ordered us to stay at home until further notice," Captain Milija Milosevic told Reuters.

A Ukrainian police officer serving with the United Nations died overnight of injuries sustained in the riots. A U.N. source said he died of shrapnel wounds. Polish, French and Ukrainian police were also injured, some seriously.

The violence was the worst since Kosovo's Albanian majority declared independence from Serbia on Feb. 17 and highlighted the risk of the new state's partition along ethnic lines.

TENSION AND BARRICADES

Soldiers in armoured personnel carriers (APCs) secured key positions in the flashpoint town of Mitrovica, where Serbs opposed to Kosovo's independence clashed with U.N. police and NATO peacekeepers on Monday.

The main bridge over the river separating the Serb north from the Albanian south was closed. Razor-wire and upturned garbage containers blocked the way.

The violence was sparked by a U.N. police operation to retake a U.N. court seized three days earlier by protesting Serbs and cast further doubt on the deployment in the north of a European Union rule-of-law mission in the coming two months.

It left NATO holding the line. But the 16,000-strong peace force has ruled out policing the new state, a job the United Nations is supposed to hand over to the EU.

"We will maintain our intention to deploy the mission throughout the territory of Kosovo," the EU's new Kosovo envoy, Pieter Feith, told a news conference. The EU last month withdrew a small advance team from north Mitrovica for security reasons.

About 120,000 Serbs remain in Kosovo among 2 million ethnic Albanians. Almost half live in the north, adjacent to Serbia and in complete isolation from the capital Pristina. They reject the incoming EU mission as "occupiers".

Backed by big-power ally Russia, Serbia has rejected Kosovo's secession and its recognition by the United States and a majority of the EU's 27 members.

Russia demanded restraint by NATO on Monday and Serbia said it was consulting Moscow on joint steps to protect Kosovo Serbs.