A NATO soldier patrols Tuesday near Kumanovo, Macedonia, where three U.S. troops disappeared Wednesday 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: 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

March 31, 1999
Web posted at: 10:30 p.m. EST (0330 GMT)

In this story: 'Artificial' refugee crisis Policy of 'identity elimination' 'Executed' Kosovar leaders may be alive NATO attacks expanded, faster pace Russia to send navy vessel RELATED STORIES, SITES

BRUSSELS, Belgium (CNN) -- As NATO forces broadened their attacks on Yugoslavia, warning no place would be a "sanctuary" for Serb forces, an extensive search-and-rescue operation was under way to find three U.S. soldiers who vanished Wednesday on a routine reconnaissance mission near the Yugoslavian border.

Helicopters from several NATO nations and ground troops including Macedonian police were combing the region.

The missing soldiers were part of a larger patrol near the Macedonian village of Kumanovo when the group decided to split up into teams.

At about 2:30 p.m. local time Wednesday (7:30 a.m. EST), the three men radioed that they had come under small-arms fire by unknown gunmen. Shortly afterward, they reported being surrounded; then radio contact was lost.

Search efforts began almost immediately, but there has been no sign of the soldiers or their Humvee.

Pentagon officials would not speculate on who might be responsible, but they indicated that Yugoslav or Serb military forces, special police units or Macedonian Serbs could have been involved.

The U.S. army troops were part of what used to be a U.N. peacekeeping mission charged with monitoring the border between Macedonia and Yugoslavia. When that mission ended in February, the troops remained as part of a NATO border force.

Earlier Wednesday, NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana said the alliance remained determined to halt the killings of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo and to damage the Serb "war machinery" in Yugoslavia as much as possible.

Solana told CNN 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," he said.

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

Speaking on CNN in response to Solana's statement, Jovanovic said Belgrade was merely cracking down on "terrorism," and he blamed the refugee crisis on NATO and the 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.

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.

The refugee exodus has triggered a massive international aid effort involving many Western nations and all major international humanitarian aid agencies.

NATO has 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," NATO spokesman Jamie Shea said at a 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."

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

Shea said the alliance would "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 Milosevic accepts an international peace proposal, or NATO considers the Yugoslav military forces too weakened to continue their crackdown.

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 also confirmed that Russia had filed a request for passage into the Mediterranean Sea.

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.

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