U.S. B-1B Lancer bombers are in the NATO arsenal RELATED VIDEO CNN's David Ensor looks at some of the reasons NATO's air campaign has not stopped Serb attacks on Kosovo's Albanians; March 31 Windows Media 28K 80K CNN's Brent Sadler reports on ongoing protests and Yugoslavian sentiment -- March 31 Windows Media 28K 80K CNN's Steve Harrigan reports on Russian tensions over Kosovo on Wednesday, March 31 Windows Media 28K 80K On CNN March 31, NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana reaffirmed the organization's stance against Yugoslavia Windows Media 28K 80K To view the latest video streams on the strikes in Yugoslavia, use the arrow buttons below to scroll through the video gallery. 28 K 80 K IMAGE GALLERY: In defense of hallowed ground: The Serbs and Kosovo  ALSO: Three U.S. soldiers missing near Yugoslav border Clinton urged to support ground troops in Kosovo Serb 'Tiger' condemns war crimes charges Kosovo exodus reaches 130,000 in one week Weather, air defenses hamper NATO Access to NATO's Web site disrupted  MESSAGE BOARD Crisis in Kosovo  NATO Maps: NATO military targets Ethnic Cleansing

Yugoslavia blames NATO for refugees

March 31, 1999
Web posted at: 6:44 p.m. EST (2344 GMT)

In this story: 'Artificial' refugee crisis NATO attacks expanded, faster pace Belgrade policy of 'identity elimination' 'Executed' Kosovar leaders may be alive NATO lists recent targets Yugoslavia lists targets hit Report: Russia to send navy vessel RELATED STORIES, SITES

BRUSSELS, Belgium (CNN) -- NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana said Wednesday the alliance remained determined to halt the killings of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo and to damage the Serbian "war machinery" in Yugoslavia as much as possible.

Yugoslavia's representative to the United Nations, Vladislav Jovanovic, said NATO was creating an "artificial humanitarian situation" and was trying to broaden NATO influence in the Balkans.

NATO announced earlier in the day that it had expanded its list of bombing targets and the pace of bombing raids.

Solana told CNN that the basic objectives had not changed. He said the aim of Operation Allied Force was to "damage as much as possible the machinery of war, and the destruction of the Serbian army and the military police."

"We are going to continue to damage as much as possible those units that are responsible for the criminal acts that have taken place in Kosovo," Solana said in his interview with CNN.

The Pentagon said NATO warplanes struck the headquarters of elite Serbian forces in what was described as the closest-ever attack to downtown Belgrade.

"The special unit corps is the Yugoslav equivalent to our special forces. It's an elite group that is now working in Kosovo and provides reconnaissance and other special forces support to the Yugoslav army," Pentagon spokesman Ken Bacon said during a Wednesday afternoon briefing.

Bacon also said preliminary reports suggested that NATO planes struck several tanks and other heavily armored military vehicles operating in Kosovo.

'Artificial' refugee crisis

According to the U.N. refugee agency, over the past week, more than 130,000 ethnic Albanians have fled Kosovo

Jovanovic, speaking on CNN in response to Solana's statement, said Belgrade was merely cracking down on "terrorism," and he blamed the refugee crisis in the region on NATO and the separatist Kosovo Liberation Army.

"Albanian terrorists, in close cooperation with NATO, have told the people to escape from Kosovo in order to manufacture an artificial humanitarian situation," he said.

Jovanovic accused NATO and the KLA of teaming up and trying to spread the influence of NATO in the Balkans.

Tens of thousands of ethnic Albanians have fled to Macedonia, Albania and Montenegro in the past few days. Many of them told CNN of random executions by Serb army and paramilitary police units, looting, torching and forced expulsions.

Many Western nations and all major international humanitarian aid agencies have mounted a massive international aid effort in response to the refugee exodus.

Bacon said the U.S. Defense Department "stands ready to provide whatever assistance we can" for relief, including food and shelter.

"The Air Force is in the process of taking down all its tents at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia because the airmen are moving into dormitories, and therefore these tents could possibly be available for use in Albania or Macedonia," Bacon said.

The Defense Department also located 250,000 daily rations that could be sent to refugees, Bacon said. An Air Force unit plans to set up air traffic control stations in remote areas for the relief effort, he said.

NATO attacks expanded, faster pace

In light of Yugoslavia's continued crackdown in the Serbian province, NATO said Wednesday the airstrikes against Serbian military targets would be stepped up.

NATO spokesman Jamie Shea said the alliance would now "extend the range and the tempo of operations in order to maximize the effectiveness of the (bombing) campaign."

"No facility, no unit, which is currently being used to plan, conceive, direct or carry out the Yugoslav campaign against the Kosovars is going to be a sanctuary," said Shea.

The alliance says it will stop its raids only if Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic accepts an international peace proposal, or NATO considers the Yugoslav military forces too weakened to continue their assaults in Kosovo.

Belgrade policy of 'identity elimination'

NATO accused the Yugoslav authorities of deliberate "identity elimination" of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.

"The Yugoslav forces, so we are learning, are destroying the archives of the Kosovar people: property deeds, marriage licenses, birth certificates, financial and other records," Shea said at the news conference.

"This is a kind of Orwellian scenario of attempting to deprive a people of a sense of past and a sense of community on which it depends and to rewrite history," he said, comparing it to a vicious regime described in the novel "1984" by English author George Orwell.

However, NATO backed off assertions that two Kosovo Albanian leaders had been summarily executed by Yugoslav security forces.

U.S. diplomatic sources told CNN Wednesday that Fehmi Agani, a politician who played a key role in the Rambouillet peace talks, and Baton Haxhiu, a Kosovar newspaper editor who also participated at Rambouillet, may be alive.

"Nobody has proof, but people have talked with them recently, have seen them in the last few days, and we believe they are alive," a U.S. diplomat said at NATO headquarters in Brussels.

Air Commodore David Wilby of NATO had cited "reliable sources" Monday in announcing the deaths, saying the two were among five leading ethnic Albanian intellectuals who were rounded up and executed the day before.

Another Albanian-American source called the situation "very confusing" Wednesday. He told CNN he couldn't confirm that Agani and Haxhiu are alive.

"For the past three days, they've been saying they're dead. It's a panic," he said. "The phone lines and cell phones (in Kosovo) are cut."

NATO says this aerial photo shows the Novi Sad heliport and vehicle storage depot in Serbia targeted by airstrikes Tuesday

NATO lists recent targets

NATO military spokesman Air Commodore David Wilby told the news briefing in Brussels that among the targets hit recently in Yugoslavia were a helicopter port in Novi Sad, an airfield in Nis and an army garrison in Pristina.

Belgrade was also on the target list, according to NATO.

Wilby said 30 Yugoslav aircraft had been "destroyed in the air and on the ground" so far in the NATO campaign.

Yugoslavia lists targets hit

According to the Yugoslav news agency Tanjug, NATO missiles hit industrial suburbs of Belgrade and installations around Pristina, the capital of Kosovo.

Tanjug said NATO also dropped cluster bombs on the outskirts of Kosovo's second-largest city, Pec, on Wednesday, hitting a neighborhood inhabited by Serbs.

Serbian authorities said the central town of Kragujevac suffered severe damage at an air force facility.

Jovanovic told CNN the bombings were a clear sign of NATO's "criminal aggression" against a sovereign country. And that message was carried on posters and placards in Belgrade, where Serbs rallied at a rock concert Wednesday.

Report: Russia to send navy vessel

Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev said Wednesday that Russia had officially notified Turkey that it planned to send one naval reconnaissance vessel into the Mediterranean Sea, "into the region of conflict in Yugoslavia," in early April.

A senior U.S. government official confirmed that Russia had filed a request for passage into the Mediterranean Sea.

Bacon said he believed seven Russian ships were headed to the Mediterranean, including an intelligence-gathering ship. He said the Pentagon had "decades of history in dealing with Russian intelligence gathering ships," and he did not think such a ship would be much help to Yugoslav forces.

The Pentagon official also said televised reports on NATO planes taking off and landing were already keeping Yugoslav military officials updated.

He indicated there was not great concern about the ships because "in our intelligence community, everybody is quite confident that we can deal with whatever the ship may be doing."

"President Yeltsin has said that the Russians do not plan to get involved in this conflict, and since that is a very reasonable tack for the Russians to take, we take him at his word on that," Bacon added.

In Moscow, Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov vowed to press on with efforts to halt NATO's bombing and achieve a peaceful resolution.

State Department Correspondent Andrea Koppel contributed to this report.