U.S. May Call Up Reservists in Escalation of Allied Air War

WASHINGTON —  The Clinton administration and its NATO allies prepared Tuesday for a major escalation of the 3-week-old air war in Yugoslavia, including a possible call-up of U.S. air reserve units in California and elsewhere, as an American effort to enlist Russian support to resolve the Kosovo crisis failed to achieve a breakthrough.

Fears grew that the war in the Balkans was spreading on the ground as Yugoslav infantry troops crossed into northeastern Albania and briefly seized control of a border village after firing at Albanian border police. The clash ended when the Yugoslav forces withdrew after several hours.

President Clinton, meanwhile, buoyed after a White House meeting with 58 members of Congress, said he was satisfied with progress in the war. He said the airstrikes are “diminishing and grinding down” Yugoslav military capabilities, adding, “Now we are taking our allied air campaign to the next level.”

Pentagon officials said the Joint Chiefs of Staff will approve most or all of a request from Gen. Wesley K. Clark, NATO’s supreme commander, to add 300 more U.S. warplanes to the 500 that the United States already has deployed. Clark also asked for more strike aircraft from other nations in the 19-member alliance.

Clark’s request marks the fourth time that he has sought additional military resources since North Atlantic Treaty Organization warplanes first began bombing March 24 in a sustained campaign to drive Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic’s military and security forces out of Kosovo and guarantee safety for the province’s ethnic Albanian majority. Half a million people have been driven from their homes since the campaign began.

The administration previously had agreed to add an aircraft carrier battle group, 24 Apache helicopter gunships and 2,700 support troops, and 82 warplanes to the NATO war effort. If Clark’s latest request is approved, NATO will have about 1,000 aircraft at its disposal--nearly half the coalition force used in the Persian Gulf War of 1991.

U.S. and European officials said Tuesday that the United States will be sending up to 50 Apaches to Albania, double the number previously reported, the Washington Post said.

Riverside Reserve Wing May Be Mobilized

Although final plans have not been made, Pentagon officials said they may mobilize the 163rd Air Refueling Wing, which is based at March Air Reserve Base in Riverside, as well as the 144th Fighter Wing, which operates 18 F-16 fighters from Fresno. Other reserve units likely to get called up are Air Guard units in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Michigan, Idaho and Maryland.

“I do anticipate that there’s likely to be a reserve call-up,” Pentagon spokesman Kenneth H. Bacon said. He did not say how many personnel would be needed, but other officials said they think that several hundred to several thousand pilots, air crews, support staff and civil affairs officers might be tapped for service. The White House so far has ruled out deploying ground troops.

Britain and France on Tuesday also vowed to boost their forces around Kosovo to assist in NATO’s first humanitarian aid effort and protect the refugees who have fled “ethnic cleansing” by Yugoslav forces in Kosovo. The extra troops also presumably would take part if NATO reverses course and orders combat troops into Yugoslavia. Kosovo is a province of Serbia, the dominant Yugoslav republic.

At a briefing, Clark denied that his request for hundreds more aircraft meant that NATO’s air campaign has failed and that the use of ground troops is inevitable. “Right now, what we intend to do is strengthen and intensify the air campaign,” he said.

Despite a three-hour meeting in Oslo, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Russian Foreign Minister Igor S. Ivanov failed to resolve a bitter dispute over Kosovo that has brought a numbing chill to relations between Washington and Moscow.

The difference is crucial: Russia, a longtime ally of the Serbs, continues to call for an immediate end to the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, and it continues to oppose NATO’s plan for deployment of an international peacekeeping force for Kosovo unless Milosevic reverses course and agrees to accept the troops.

“Any form of international presence requires the agreement of the leadership of Yugoslavia,” Ivanov said in a joint news conference with Albright.

But Ivanov said he is prepared to launch a new diplomatic effort to end the conflict. “Russia will continue to work to find a way out of this cul-de-sac,” he said. Referring to the Yugoslav and Serbian capital, he added: “If we have to go to Belgrade, we will go to Belgrade. If we have to go to Washington, we will go to Washington.”

A senior State Department official later told reporters that Ivanov brought a Russian proposal for a postwar Kosovo settlement to the meeting. The official said the two envoys went over the text line by line but that Albright rejected several aspects of the plan. He declined to elaborate.

Still, the official said the discussion produced agreement on NATO’s political points. “It was a good outcome for us,” the official said.

NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana displayed little optimism after the meeting. “We would like to [cooperate] with the Russians, but it takes two to tango,” he said.

In other developments Tuesday:

* Clark told a briefing that NATO has launched 1,687 airstrikes against targets in Yugoslavia since the allied assault began, with more than 4,300 reconnaissance, escort and other support sorties. In the previous 24 hours alone, he said Tuesday afternoon, NATO had launched 446 flights, including 165 air attacks.

* Clinton said he would ask Congress for an emergency supplemental appropriation to pay for the mission in Kosovo, as well as humanitarian relief efforts, in coming months. A Pentagon spokesman estimated that the request would be for $3 billion to $4 billion.

* The State Department urged Albanian Americans to contribute to humanitarian groups working with Kosovo refugees rather than fly to the Balkans to fight in the Kosovo rebel army, as some reportedly have done. “We are not encouraging this kind of activity,” spokesman James Foley said.

* After several days in which the refugee flow had slowed, a new wave of Kosovo Albanians poured into Albania, Macedonia and Montenegro, the smaller Yugoslav republic. But aid agencies said the chaos that marked the early days of the war, when tens of thousands of refugees were stuck in squalid makeshift camps along the border, is now less severe as supplies flood into the area.

* The Vatican criticized the U.N. Population Fund for offering “morning-after” pills to refugee women who have been raped because the pill helps abort a fetus. The U.N. agency plans to distribute 350,000 emergency reproductive health kits, which include equipment to deliver babies, a variety of contraceptives and the pills for rape victims. The Roman Catholic Church fervently opposes abortion.

* A 68-truck Russian convoy carrying blankets, food and other humanitarian aid arrived in Belgrade and headed for a distribution point in Dobanovci, west of the capital. The Russian relief effort drew international notice over the weekend when Hungarian border guards stopped the convoy and insisted that Russia remove several fuel tankers and armored vehicles that appeared in violation of a U.N. arms embargo on Yugoslavia.

With partly clearing skies, NATO warplanes and missiles again pummeled parts of Belgrade as well as Pristina, Kosovo’s capital, in an attempt to destroy Milosevic’s lines of communication and troop concentrations.

The latest air assault hit Yugoslavia’s biggest oil refinery, at Pancevo just across the Danube River from Belgrade, for the second time. The state news agency, Tanjug, said six NATO missiles also hit an oil depot and plastics factory near Pristina, setting a fuel dump ablaze.

Flames also lighted the sky in Smederevo, in central Serbia, after NATO missiles slammed into an industrial complex that houses the state fuel company, Jugopetrol. Other targets included an oil depot outside Sombor, in northern Serbia, and an oil refinery at Novi Sad, the country’s second-largest city.

Yugoslav Troops Shell Albanian Village

In the border clash, Albanian officials said, Yugoslav troops shelled Kamenica, about 70 miles northeast of the capital, Tirana, for several hours before they entered the village Tuesday. It was largely abandoned at the time, and there were no reports of casualties.

Yugoslavia denied that its troops had crossed the border and instead accused Albanian forces of invading its territory. The rugged mountain area has seen repeated skirmishes in recent weeks because it is the chief staging area for the insurgent Kosovo Liberation Army, an ethnic Albanian rebel group that is fighting for independence for Kosovo.

Albania is one of Europe’s poorest and least developed countries, and its military is a poor match for Milosevic’s powerful army.

In London, Prime Minister Tony Blair said Britain will deploy a second armored battle group, with about 1,800 troops, to Greece and Macedonia.

Drogin reported from Washington and Havemann from Brussels. Times staff writers Norman Kempster in Oslo, Paul Watson in Pristina, Janet Wilson at the United Nations, John Daniszewski in Albania and Elizabeth Shogren in Macedonia; and Paul Richter, Edward Chen, James Gerstenzang, Tyler Marshall and Melissa Healy in Washington also contributed to this report.

Many charities are accepting contributions to help refugees from Kosovo. The list may be found at https://www.

latimes.com/kosovoaid.

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War Wrap-Up

A roundup of events as NATO airstrikes continue in Yugoslavia:

* Washington: Clinton administration, NATO allies prepared for escalated air war.

* Washington: Pentagon officials may mobilize a Riverside-based reserve unit.

* Albania: Yugoslav troops crossed border to ransack village, Albania said.

* Vatican: U.N. plan to offer “morning after” pills to refugee rape victims blasted.

Total sorties flown: 5,987

24-hr. total, ending Tues.: 446

* Norway: Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, above, and Russian Foreign Minister Igor S. Ivanov met in Oslo but failed to resolve a bitter dispute over Kosovo.

Flight Forecast: Partly cloudy over Belgrade today with showers expected Thursday and Friday.

Times Website Offers Update: latimes.com/yugo