MITROVICA, Kosovo (CNN) -- A Kosovar Albanian boy, screaming and cursing, dashed forward and hurled a softball-sized chunk of concrete at a phalanx of French soldiers and Italian police assembled Friday at the bridge connecting Mitrovica's majority-Serb north and its overwhelmingly ethnic Albanian south.

A French soldier tried to block the chunk with his shield, but too late. The rock slammed into his shoulder, and he doubled over in pain.

Another volley of rocks rained on the cordon, but the soldiers and police held firm. A French soldier fired one canister after another into the crowd in a series of deafening reports. Dozens of ethnic Albanians scattered as tear gas grenades hurled their blinding contents into the air.

Undeterred, the protesters responded with more rocks and bottles. Darting from behind trees and kiosks, they launched guerrilla-like attacks on the entrenched police.

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•	Mitrovica: Symbol of divided Kosovo
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The scene quickly deteriorated into a violent tableau. Silhouettes of truncheons, Kevlar helmets and barbed wire appeared through a shroud of gray gas. Completing the picture were armored vehicles and truckloads of reserve troops.

The protest, triggered by the killings of five ethnic Albanians in the city's northern district the night before, reveals that the sensitive fault line between the city's ethnic groups is in danger of shifting out of control.

Symbol of a divided Kosovo

Bisected by the Ibar River, the northern mining city of Mitrovica has become a symbol of a divided Kosovo. The city's 90,000 ethnic Albanians are segregated from at least 11,000 Serbs and buffered by a heavy presence of French peacekeepers serving in KFOR, the NATO-led force in Kosovo.

The city has frequently been a flash point for violence between the two groups, requiring only a small spark to set things off. When a rocket-propelled grenade slammed into a U.N. bus carrying Serbs from northern Mitrovica to a nearby Serb village on Wednesday, the city braced for retaliation.

The revenge came Thursday night when a wave of murders and grenade attacks swept through Mitrovica. Hundreds of Serbs then rampaged across the northern half, torching U.N. vehicles and threatening a small enclave of ethnic Albanians in the area.

KFOR announced it was beefing up security and imposing a night curfew on the city.

Albanians blame the French

But Kosovar Albanians said it was too little, too late.

"We want more guarantees for our safety," said Bajram Rexhepi, the leader of the ethnic Albanian community in Mitrovica. "We have lost trust in the U.N. Mission in Kosovo and KFOR because they can't protect the population. There have been signs that something like this could happen, but they didn't do enough."

As a crowd of several hundred ethnic Albanians gathered on the bridge on Friday, anger turned to violence against the French peacekeepers.


Soldiers and police wait on the bridge an hour before the riot

"It's a tragedy," said Ruzhdi Voci, whose cousin was killed in Thursday's violence. "They are not doing anything for the security of the citizens up there. They are acting as the Serbs did before [NATO intervention]. Only Arkan could teach them to act this way," he said, referring to slain Serb paramilitary leader Zeljko Raznatovic who was indicted on war crimes charges for his role in the wars in Croatia and Bosnia.

"We believe in the U.S.A., we believe in NATO. But we don't believe in the French," said another man.

Barred from passing to the north by a column of French troops, ethnic Albanians began displaying their frustration and distrust.

First came jeers, then snowballs, then firecrackers, then stones -- all aimed at the French soldiers, who were reinforced by Italian police in riot gear. Finally, the crowd became a mob that began to push toward the troops.

Rocks began flying in earnest. Albanians at the front of the crowd ordered protesters to avoid hitting the Italians and to concentrate on the French -- but to no avail.

In seconds, the protest dissolved into chaos.

When it was over, five KFOR soldiers had been wounded, including one with a broken arm. The acrid scent of tear gas clung to the air. Broken bottles and empty tear gas cartridges littered the street.


This burned window was left at the scene of Wednesday's rocket attack on a UNHCR bus on a mountain road north of Mitrovica

French: It's up to the people

The French remained adamant that they were doing all they could to protect all ethnic groups in Mitrovica.

"We can provide security and safety for all the people, but goodwill we cannot provide. The people must provide that for themselves," said Lt. Col. Patrick Chanliau, public information officer for KFOR's Multinational Brigade North, which is led by the French.

On the other side of the river, Serbs were equally skeptical of KFOR.

"It's not safe here. It's not safe anywhere. I could be wounded right now, just standing here," said Bratislava, a Serb woman who refused to give her last name.

Gazing down the hill at the bridge buckling under the weight of armored vehicles and troops, she voiced her dismay about how the city has been divided.

"You wish you could go there just to cross the bridge and look around," she said. "What they are doing there? Do they have the same fear? Are they as afraid as we are?"


This bridge in Mitrovica runs across the Ibar River that divides the predominantly Serb north from the overwhelmingly ethnic Albanian south

Divided city a fact of life

"Unfortunately, this city will be divided for a few years," said Oliver Ivanovic, executive board president of Kosovo's Serb National Council. "I didn't believe it at first in June, but now I believe it will last for a few years. Not as in Berlin, but it will be there."

The dividing line between ethnic Albanians and Serbs in Mitrovica does not end at the city limits. The symbolic border spreads across northern Kosovo. Heading north from Mitrovica, one enters an almost ethnically pure Serb enclave.

Kosovar Albanians fear the Serbs will try to sever the northern tip of the province to have it reabsorbed by Serbia. But the Serbs, frightened by a wave revenge attacks by ethnic Albanians that have claimed some 150 Serb lives since June, say their enclave is the only way to defend themselves.

"Serbs have been systematically pushed out of the south of Kosovo and now they feel very much afraid. They don't want to be pushed out of Mitrovica. They fear an invasion of Albanians," said Beatrice Lacoste, spokeswoman for the Mitrovica office of the U.N. Mission in Kosovo.

With both sides regarding the other with deep suspicion and hatred, the city appears as divided as ever.

The question many residents on either bank of the Ibar River are asking is whether it will take a violent expulsion or an unexpected reconciliation to make Mitrovica one city again.

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