Violence shakes up Kosovo

SERBIANNA (USA), Friday, November 17, 2005 -6:29 PM (20:29 GMT)

A wave of bombings, shootings and assassination attempts shakes up Kosovo as the Albanian dominated Kosovo assembly voted for a resolution stating that they will accept nothing less than independence in the UN-mediated talks on the future of the province.

Ethnic Serb homes in Kosovo are shown burning in this file photo from 2004, torched by an ethnic Albanian mob. Over 20 Churches have been destroyed in one day, most a heritage of the medieval Europe.

An explosion went off in downtown Pristina, near the UN and Kosovo Police headquarters confirms the Kosovo Police Service (KPS) official for the Pristina region, Sabrije Kamberi. The explosion occurred in Ljuana Haradinaj Street at about 8:30 pm and one vehicle of the KPS was damaged in the blast. Another bomb planted under a truck in the market in a southern Kosovo town of Strpce exploded injuring four people. Strpce Mayor said that the bomb injured three ethnic Serbs, Boban Markovic, born 1990, Darko Ivkovic, born 1989, and Milos Basaric, all from the village of Sevce near Strpce, as well as an ethnic Albanian, a truck owner Kadri Guri, born in 1956 from Kacanik near Urosevac.

In the Kosovo village of Suvi Do, unknown attackers opened fire on an ethnic Serb, Ilija Petronijevic, in the yard of his house.

Kosovo Police Service said that on the regional road from Pristina to Gnjilane near the village of Bresalce, an unknown person opened fire on a green Mazda, killing one person and seriously injuring another.

In a separate incident, a bomb planted in a Kosovo police vehicle detonated late Wednesday, but didn't injure the officer inside. Top police commissioner Kai Vitrupp said Thursday the device had been "big enough to kill a man inside."

Kosovo is a Serbian province that has been administered by the UN since 1999 when NATO attacks forced Milosevic troops out of the province. Since then, Albanians have engaged in violent attacks on ethnic minorities and demand independence.

Analysts say sporadic bomb blasts and shootings in Kosovo, often targeting U.N. vehicles, their facilities as well as ethnic Serbs are part of an Albanian campaign to warn the U.N. that in case their desire for independence is not granted more violence will be rendered.