Once suspicious movement is spotted, he explains, the force alerts the village and locals run to American soldiers stationed nearby to warn them of ensuing action. In one such incident last July, rebels claim, two U.S. tanks rolled into Dobrosin, a remote village 300 metres from Serbia's southern border with Kosovo, after Serbian police arrested four locals. Just last month, he went to a nearby town together with 13 other farmers to shop and sell his wheat. On their return, Jashari says, a group of 30 Serb policemen ordered the farmers to put their hands behind their heads and lie down on the road. For two hours, the Albanian elders were kept at gunpoint.
Many locals are now determined to use every means at their disposal to fend off Serbian attack.
Under the Military and Technical Agreement signed between KFOR and Belgrade last June, Yugoslav forces withdrew from Kosovo and a 5-km buffer zone beyond the designated administrative border dividing the Yugoslav province from Serbia proper. The U.S. forces designated to guard the eastern borders of Kosovo and northern Macedonia have beefed up patrols and surveillance over the past two weeks. On Feb. 17, U.S. Lieut. We do not want them to believe we are willing to cooperate with them. With Kosovo already rattled by a flare-up of ethnic violence in Mitrovica, diplomats and KFOR intelligence fear that the Presevo area may become the region's new flashpoint.