Marines return fire

U.S. troops in Kosovo kill one and wound two others after shots fired.

and PAUL RICHTER

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia -- As NATO troops struggled to stop the spread of robbery, arson and revenge attacks across Kosovo, U.S. Marines came under fire Wednesday at a rural roadblock and shot back, killing at least one person and wounding two others, U.S. officials said. No U.S. personnel were hurt, but officials said the incident reflects the increasing friction between peacekeepers and some residents of Kosovo. On Monday, U.S. soldiers of the 82nd Airborne Division came under fire as they entered a southeastern Kosovo village, though no one was killed or injured in the incident. U.S. officials said the affiliation of the assailants who fired on the Marines on Wednesday remained unclear. The incident took place in the southeastern Kosovo town of Zegra, less than two miles south of the U.S. forces' headquarters at Gnjilane. The Marines were manning the checkpoint when the gunfire erupted from a cluster of nearby buildings. With support from AH-64 Apache helicopters, they returned fire, surrounded the buildings and talked the assailants into surrendering. The two injured were treated, and one member of the group was detained, Army Gen. John Craddock, commander of the U.S. forces in Kosovo, told a Pentagon briefing by telephone. U.S. officials could provide few details of the incident, and it was unclear whether any of the assailants escaped. A statement released by the U.S. forces in Kosovo said the attackers reportedly were wearing civilian clothes, and their motives were unknown. Craddock said NATO-led peacekeeping forces are at risk from "rogue elements" among both ethnic Albanians and Serbs. "We have become the targets of violent acts," Craddock said. The southeastern area patrolled by U.S. forces has been considered one of the more peaceful sectors of Kosovo, a province of Yugoslavia's main republic, Serbia. Zegra was the site last week of a standoff between U.S. forces and about 100 Kosovo Liberation Army, or KLA, rebels who resisted orders to surrender weapons until the Marines called in attack helicopters. Earlier Wednesday, four foreign ministers from key NATO nations ended a victory tour of Kosovo with a news conference in Pristina. "We can win the peace when we have justice and democracy," said German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, who visited Kosovo with his counterparts from Britain, France and Italy. For the moment, 19,000 NATO soldiers are in the province, out of an expected force of about 50,000. The peacekeepers, called KFOR or Kosovo Force, are spread very thin and are having a difficult time restoring order.

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