Police fire warning shots to disperse Serb crowd in Kosovo

Associated Press, Jul 25, 2005 7:30 AM

PRISTINA, Serbia-Montenegro-Officers fired warning shots and pepper spray to disperse a crowd of Serbs in a confrontation in a Kosovo town over the weekend, police said.

The incident occurred Sunday in the divided town of Kosovska Mitrovica, 45 kilometers (30 miles) north of province's capital, Pristina, when police attempted to arrest a man suspected of throwing bottles at a U.N. police officer patrolling a bridge.

Bystanders intervened, pushing back officers until the suspect escaped, police said Monday.

"As the crowd continued to advance ... one of the officers discharged four warning shots into the air, causing the crowd to stop their advance," a police statement said.

Kosovo has been administered by the U.N. and patrolled by NATO-led peacekeepers since 1999, when the alliance ended a Serb crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists.

In a separate incident, unknown assailants fired an automatic rifle and threw a hand grenade into the yard of a Serb house Sunday in a northern Kosovo village. No one was injured but the house was damaged, police said.