International force seizes large quantity of weapons in Kosovo

The international security force in Kosovo (KFOR) has seized a large quantity of weapons believed to be destined for ethnic Albanian rebels in the Presevo Valley area of southern Serbia, a United Nations spokesman announced today.

According to the spokesman, a large truck carrying timber and three cars accompanying it were stopped on Thursday evening outside Pec in western Kosovo. Among the weapons seized were 52 rocket launchers, five anti-aircraft surface-to-air missiles and a dozen anti-tank rocket launchers. Seven people were arrested and held for questioning, the spokesman said.

Meanwhile, the number of ethnic Albanians arriving in Kosovo from the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia stood at nearly 9,000, but daily arrivals had dwindled to between 350 and 400 people a day, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported today. Some of those arriving in Kosovo alleged that Macedonian border police were charging money for allowing them to leave, UNHCR spokesman Ron Redmond said today in Geneva. UNHCR was discussing the allegations with the Skopje Government.

There were also reports of ethnic Albanian separatists preventing villagers from leaving their homes in mountainous areas, but such reports could not be confirmed independently, the spokesman said. Villagers interviewed by UNHCR said some people stayed behind to keep an eye on their property.