Smoke rises above Podgorica
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April 16, 1999
Web posted at: 9:14 a.m. EDT (1314 GMT)

In this story: Serbs: Village, oil refinery hit NATO blamed for new civilian deaths Cohen: "Hooded thugs" RELATED STORIES, SITES

LONDON (CNN) -- NATO mounted new attacks on Yugoslavia on Friday, hitting targets in Montenegro as well as Serbia, as British military officials cited new accounts of mass killings of ethnic Albanians by Yugoslav forces in Kosovo.

Montenegro, one of two republics in Yugoslavia, has criticized both the Belgrade government and NATO and tried to remain neutral in the conflict. It has been spared the brunt of NATO's attacks in the air campaign, which entered its 24th day Friday.

"There was a successful attack against the air base at Podgorica, from which we believe Serb aircraft have been flying over Albania," said Gen. Sir Charles Guthrie, Britain's chief of staff.

Friday's targets also included ammunition and fuel stocks, as well as anti-aircraft installations and the Yugoslav airfield at Nis, Guthrie said.

"Two MiG 21s, three tanks, six artillery positions and six bunkers were destroyed," Guthrie said.

Meanwhile, a new wave of refugees from Kosovo brought fresh accounts of massacres and mass graves to international relief workers in Macedonia and Albania, Guthrie said.

"There are reports that thousands of young men have been murdered. I hesitate to quote a more precise estimate," Guthrie said.

More than 12,000 Kosovo refugees have entered Macedonia since Monday, said Brig. Tim Cross, a British general coordinating NATO relief operations there. Cross said another 3,000 were waiting at the frontier to enter the country.

Serbs: Village, oil refinery hit

Yugsolavia's state-run media reported Friday that the latest NATO strikes hit civilian areas in the town of Subotica, about 9 miles (15 km) south of the Yugoslav-Hungarian border.

Belgrade radio and TV reported a refugee complex housing Serbian refugees from Bosnia and Croatia was hit by three missiles in Paracin, about 75 miles (120 km) southeast of Belgrade. Further information was not immediately available, the reports said.

There was no independent confirmation of either attack.

Three missiles slammed into the country's main oil refinery in Pancevo and a chemical factory was struck, Serbian TV reported. Missile strikes reportedly hit an oil refinery in Novi Sad, Yugoslavia's second largest city that has sustained heavy bombings during Operation Allied Force.

A bridge in Smederevo about 25 miles (40 km) east of Belgrade, was damaged, Serb TV said. State-run television also reported NATO strikes around the Montenegran capital of Podgorica.

Air raid sirens sounded in Belgrade earlier than usual Thursday evening followed two hours later with heavy bursts of sustained anti-aircraft fire.

Damaged bridge in Smederevo

Earlier, Yugoslav government officials charged that NATO jets had struck the village of Srbica Thursday killing seven ethnic Albanians including children.

The village is west of Pristina, they said, promising to take journalists to the scene.

That report came following an admission by NATO that one of its pilots, believing he was attacking a military vehicle at the head of a convoy in southwestern Kosovo, may have mistakenly struck a civilian vehicle instead.

"No one could commit such a grave mistake," responded Yugoslav Foreign Ministry spokesman Nebojsa Vujovic. "The price should be paid in the court of justice."

NATO spokesman Jamie Shea said he had no information on the latest Serb accusations about civilian deaths at Srbica. He said he was wary of the Serb report but expected there would be more of them.

Yugoslav officials said Wednesday three NATO planes fired on two columns of fleeing ethnic Albanians, killing as many as 85 civilians and injuring 25 more.

Shea said NATO "deeply regrets the loss of life" -- comments echoed later on by U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen and U.S. President Bill Clinton.

"The pilot attacked what he believed to be military vehicles in a convoy. He was convinced he had the right target. He dropped his bomb in good faith as you would expect a trained pilot from a democratic NATO country to do," said Shea.

"Let us not allow one accident, no matter how tragic, to obscure the real stakes in this crisis, which is sometimes one has to risk lives of the few in order to save lives of the many."

An oil refinery burns following an attack in Pancevo

Cohen told Congress it was "grotesque" for the government of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to call the incident an atrocity "when in fact he has caused the displacement of refugees in excess of a million people, where he has sent in 40,000 of his military, paramilitary, police hooded thugs, to savagely kill and slaughter at random on a wholesale basis these innocent people."

Clinton said the ultimate responsibility for civilian deaths falls on Milosevic because he is "willing to use people as human shields."

"He is now determined to crush all resistance to his rule, even if it means turning Kosovo into a lifeless wasteland," he said.

Cohen said there will be no quick end to the NATO engagement and warned there is an increasing probability of American casualties.

"The notion that we could carry this kind of a mission against this kind, in this circumstance, with only a possibility of casualties would be misleading. It's probabilities, and we ought to expect that, anticipate it and, nonetheless, persevere," said Cohen in Senate committee testimony.

Brig. Gen. Giuseppe Maraini, the NATO military briefing officer, said two convoys were struck by NATO in southwestern Kosovo on Wednesday.

"When the pilot attacked they appeared to him and his sensors to be military vehicles. That's why he attacked them," said Maraini.

Maraini said the bomb was dropped from an altitude of 15,000 feet by an F-16 fighter.

A tape was played in which the pilot, with a voice that sounded American, said he saw a series of villages and houses which he was convinced were being burned by Yugoslav Army and special police forces before he launched his attack.

He said he spotted three vehicles which appeared to be large military vehicles and after several passes targeted the lead vehicle and dropped a bomb.

Amid the controversy over who was responsible for the refugee deaths, British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook accused Milosevic and the Yugoslav government of crying "crocodile tears" over a conflict they started.

A refugee who arrived in Kukes, Albania said a plane passed over his convoy, dropped a bomb, then returned and dropped another. He said he and his son hid beneath their tractor. His wife was killed.

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