3 U.N. Police Killed in Shootout

KOSOVSKA MITROVICA, Serbia and Montenegro -- Two Americans and a Jordanian were shot dead in Kosovo on Saturday, when emotions over Iraq apparently boiled over into a gun battle among members of the U.N. law enforcement mission.

The shootout erupted as a group of police officers -- 21 Americans, two Turks and an Austrian -- were leaving a detention center at the U.N. compound in this city at the end of the day. They came under fire from at least one Jordanian guard there, said Neeraj Singh, a U.N. spokesman.

The lethal 10-minute gunfight between fellow members of the U.N. force was unprecedented in five years of peacekeeping in Kosovo, where police from about 30 nations make up the 3,500-strong international force. Ethnically divided Kosovska Mitrovica is more commonly the scene of clashes between Serbs and ethnic Albanians. U.N. police and troops from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization often intervene in such clashes to keep the peace. Riots in the city a month ago killed 28 and injured hundreds.

Milan Ivanovic, deputy head of the Serbian hospital in the city, said one of the dead was an American woman, who was hit along with four female U.S. police colleagues.

U.N. police sources said four Jordanian police officers had been arrested in connection with the shooting, but could give no further details.

A police source said the shooting began with a dispute over the war in Iraq. Singh said the U.N. was investigating the possible motive.

The top U.N. official in Kosovo, Harri Holkeri, seemed stunned at the shooting incident, which came as the mission was still grappling with last month’s violence.

“I am deeply shocked and dismayed at the unfortunate death of dedicated professionals who have come such a great distance to help Kosovo on its road to [the] future,” he said.

U.N. Police Commissioner Stefan Feller said he was “saddened” by the incident and promised a thorough inquiry.

The Jordanian government expressed regret for the incident in a statement and said it also was investigating the shooting, Jordan’s official Petra news agency reported. The statement identified the dead Jordanian as Ahmed Mustafa Ibrahim Ali.

After the gunfight, U.N. and local police officers sealed off the area, took pictures and marked the bullet cartridges with numbers. The body of a police officer, covered with what looked like a dark blue jacket, lay for hours in the yard of the detention center.

One witness, a 50-year-old woman who spoke on condition of anonymity, said she heard the shooting, ran to her balcony overlooking the yard and saw one officer shooting and another hiding.

Another witness, who also gave only his age, 31, said he was at a nearby park when he heard the shooting and later heard officers yelling, “Drop the gun! Drop the gun!”