Serbian Troops Rout Remaining Rebel Holdouts

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia —  Serb forces on Friday overran the former Albanian rebel headquarters in central Kosovo and appeared to have driven the secessionists from most of their remaining strongholds in the strategic region.

Meanwhile, NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana on Friday said the alliance was ready to take steps to ensure the safety of the civilian population in the Serbian province of Kosovo, even as a senior Russian minister said such intervention would not help bring peace to Kosovo.

A top Serb police official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the offensive in Kosovo, which has uprooted nearly 200,000 people and has left hundreds dead, was “nearly over.”

Remaining reports of fighting are “final mopping-up operations” against ethnic Albanian militants and their remaining pockets of resistance, he said.

Serbs have made similar statements before, but Friday’s gains in central Kosovo gave new weight to their words.

Not long after the official spoke, Serb forces entered Likovac, the village where U.S. envoy Christopher Hill met last week with Kosovo Liberation Army commanders. Under sniper fire, Serb troops moved from house to house, clearing out the last pockets of resistance in the village and setting fire to Albanian houses and haystacks.

The main diplomat of the ethnic Albanians’ self-styled Republic of Kosovo said the KLA had agreed in principle to join the administration led by Ibrahim Rugova.

“They have been talking about the makeup of the new government for 10 days,” Ilaz Ramajli, head of the office of the Republic of Kosovo in Albania, told Reuters.

The separatist KLA’s guerrilla war against Serbian rule in Kosovo has been fueled by frustration with the lack of results achieved by the veteran Rugova in years of peaceful protest against Belgrade.

If confirmed, the KLA’s move to join a Kosovo Albanian “government” would be a new departure for the guerrillas, who call for full independence for Kosovo and have dismissed Rugova’s nonviolent line.