Nato plea to cement Balkan truce or disarmament mission will fail

NATO will not send more troops to Macedonia to collect weapons from ethnic Albanian guerrillas unless a shaky truce with government forces stabilises, the commander of a small advance task force warned yesterday.

The Western alliance, which hopes a disarmament mission can stop a fifth Balkan war without the need for peacekeepers, is worried about being caught in the front lines.

Although Macedonia's Defence Ministry said battle zones in the northern hills were quiet, the British officer charged with sizing up the risks to a full Nato force stressed the truce was not yet secure enough to allow its deployment.

"What we have to convince ourselves of is that people are committed to the ceasefire," Brigadier Barney White-Spunner said as more units of his 400-strong reconnaissance team flew in to join a few dozen troops who arrived on Friday.

The first contingents of British, French and Czech soldiers arrived just hours after gun battles around the Tetovo region, a rebel National Liberation Army (NLA) stronghold, which killed three people including one civilian.

In a further sign of pitfalls ahead, Macedonian nationalists blockaded the road used by Nato to supply its vast peacekeeping force in neighbouring Kosovo, vowing to deny troops access unless the West met a long list of largely unpalatable demands.::::::::::::::smt19p2tory::::::::::::::

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