PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (CNN) -- Machine-gun fire sounded through the deserted streets of Kosovo's capital Pristina early on Friday as the New Year was heralded in traditional style in the troubled Serbian province.

The firing of machine-guns and other weapons began at midnight and lasted for about 30 minutes.

Firing weapons to celebrate holidays is a time-honored tradition in Kosovo.

A fragile cease-fire between Serbian security forces and separatist Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) guerrillas was holding for a fourth day on Thursday but the province remained tense, international monitors said.

Milosevic

Fighting last week in northern Kosovo between security forces and KLA guerrillas, who come from Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority and are seeking an independent Kosovo, shattered a fragile truce agreed in October.

International monitors managed to restore the truce on Sunday

Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, in a New Year message read out on state television on Wednesday evening, said his country would not accept what he called the West's promotion of independence for Kosovo.

The international community has ruled out independence for Kosovo, trying instead to broker an interim autonomy deal for the province from which Milosevic was forced to withdraw some combat forces in October under threat of NATO airstrikes.

Tension was still simmering in the province this week, with both Serbian and ethnic Albanian officials demanding the other side's forces withdraw.

A crackdown by security forces last year killed almost 2,000 people in the province and drove 250,000 from their homes before the October truce.

"The situation at the moment is that the cease-fire is holding. We had no reports of incidents overnight," said Sandy Blyth, a spokesman for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Kosovo mission.

Ethnic Albanian separatist guerrillas were still holding their positions in the villages north of Pristina on Thursday, claiming that Serbs forces were bringing in reinforcements.

A Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) guard at an entrance to Obranca village said the Yugoslav Army had deployed five tanks near Tabe, a neighboring village which was caught in a crossfire between Serb forces and KLA guerrillas last week.

A Reuters correspondent who drove through Tabe late on Thursday saw no fresh deployment of troops or military hardware. Two horses wandering the narrow streets were the only sign of life.

The Yugoslav news agency Tanjug said a police patrol had been attacked by ethnic Albanian guerrillas overnight near the northern town of Vucitrn but no one had been injured. There was no immediate independent confirmation of the report.

"The Serbs either build up forces before an attack or they simply try to intimidate us," said the KLA guard at Obranca, who declined to give his name.

He said his men would hold their positions and would wait. "There will be no provocation from our side," he said.

"After all, this (is) our land," he added.

Reuters contributed to this report.