Damage in Baric, a suburb of Belgrade RELATED VIDEO The call for ground troops is increasing, as CNN's Chris Black reports (April 18) Real 28K 80K Windows Media 28K 80K 'The funeral of NATO': CNN's Jonathan Karl takes a look at the price the alliance may pay (April 18) Real 28K 80K 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.       Windows Media Real       28 K 80 K IMAGE GALLERY: The Kosovo refugees Protesting the NATO strikes Devastation of the Kosovo capital The Serbs and Kosovo  ALSO Camps fill as refugees seek shelter April 19, 1999 Clinton, Yeltsin to confer on Yugo war April 19, 1999  MESSAGE BOARD Crisis in Kosovo  MAPS Gen. Wesley Clark describes NATO air campaign

April 19, 1999
Web posted at: 6:30 a.m. EDT (1030 GMT)

In this story: Yugoslavia breaks ties with Albania Mine kills refugees meters from safety NATO leaders deny report of invasion plan Evidence suggests 43 mass graves Serb general accuses NATO of war crimes Convoy controversy RELATED STORIES, SITES

BELGRADE (CNN) -- Air raid sirens sounded in Belgrade early Monday morning, and within hours Serbian media reported NATO strikes in six towns and cities.

Serb TV reported aerial attacks on Novi Sad, Yugoslavia's second largest city, and Kraljevo in central Serbia -- both the sites of numerous previous bombings -- and two other repeat targets: Subotica near the Hungarian border and the Kosovo capital of Pristina.

In addition, Belgrade Radio said NATO planes attacked Paracin in central Serbia, Sremska Mitrovica, northwest of Belgrade, and Obrenovac, another Belgrade Suburb.

Serb TV said the building that houses the executive council of the regional government in Novi Sad suffered damage in the attack.

Inflaming the volatile relationship between the two countries, Yugoslavia broke off diplomatic relations Sunday with neighboring Albania, which has received floods of ethnic Albanian refugees from the Serbian province of Kosovo.

The break in relations with Albania follows months of border skirmishes and a reported Serb incursion into Albania last week.

"From Albanian territory we have had about 10 days now continuous aggression," Yugoslav Foreign Minister Zivadin Jovanovic said on CNN's "Late Edition" Sunday. "So, in the situation when you have a neighboring country aggressing Yugoslavia, there is no purpose of featuring normal, diplomatic relations."

After Yugoslavia broke off relations with Albania, U.S. President Bill Clinton called the leaders of Albania and three other nations that border Yugoslavia -- Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary, a new NATO member. All four indicated strong support for NATO's campaign, a Clinton spokesman said.

The flow of refugees out of Kosovo into Albania and Macedonia intensified Sunday. Relief officials reported that dozens of ethnic Albanians who crossed into Albania at Morina, including four victims under age 4, had either been shot or wounded by shrapnel or severely beaten.

Five refugees died Sunday morning when their vehicle hit a land mine 20 meters before crossing the Yugoslav border into Albania.

In general, the refugees were described as "extremely weak" after days of walking through rough terrain in cold and rainy weather.

In Albania, schools and ministries were being made available to house refugees, while existing tent camps in Macedonia were being expanded, according to NATO spokesman Jamie Shea.

Food supplies at an Italian-run refugee camp in Kukes, Albania, were expected to last only two to three days. Designed to house 2,500 people, the camp now holds 6,000. Some refugees live in the back of tractors.

The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees reported Sunday that about 24,000 ethnic Albanians left Kosovo in the last 24 hours, with 20,000 entering Albania and 4,000 entering Macedonia.

The number of refugees who have fled the province since Serb and Yugoslav forces began a crackdown that coincided with the start of NATO bombing has reached more than 560,000 -- 359,000 to Albania, 132,700 to Macedonia and 73,000 to Montenegro.

NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana on Sunday denied a British newspaper report that the alliance was planning to launch a ground force invasion of Yugoslavia in May.

"This report is not true. We are going to continue with the same strategy, the strategy of the air campaign," Solana said on "Fox News Sunday." "And the troops will be deployed, it's been agreed already, after a cease-fire is achieved."

In other network interviews, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright both said ground troops remain an option only as a peacekeeping force.

NATO says these aerial photos show evidence of mass graves

NATO officials reported they had evidence of 43 mass grave sites in Kosovo and said the Serbs are forcing ethnic Albanians to work on "grave-digging chain gangs."

In Brussels, NATO military spokesman Brig. Gen. Giuseppe Marani told reporters that there have been numerous refugee reports that Kosovo Albanians are being assembled in "grave-digging chain gangs" to "dig graves for their countrymen killed by ethnic Serbian cleansing."

"They are reportedly put in red-orange jackets to readily identify them, and the use of these men in red to dig graves is supported by imagery evidence which has already identified 43 mass grave sites in Kosovo," Marani said.

He said the graves were different from the mass open-trench graves used during the fighting in Bosnia.

"Instead, these sites are neat rows of individual graves pointing to the southeast, toward Mecca. Despite being forced to do this gruesome task, the Albanians are clearly trying to bury their victims of (Yugoslav President Slobodan) Milosevic with respect," Marani said.

He said refugees also have told of Kosovar boys and men forced to dig coal from mines in Pristina.

Good weather Saturday into Sunday made it possible for NATO to fly 500 missions, and officials said 35 targets were hit, including an explosives plant, oil refinery, airfield and other military and communications facilities, NATO said Sunday.

But thunderstorms and hail delayed the arrival of 24 tank-killing Apache helicopters headed for Tirana, Albania.

A Serb military commander, appearing on Serb TV, said the NATO attacks have achieved only one thing.

"They committed unbelievable crime against humanity, against whole population of Yugoslavia," said Gen. Vladimir Lazarevic, commander of the Pristina Corps. "This is part of the plan of the criminal minds in the Pentagon that want to destroy the oldest people in the Balkans, the Serbian people."

Lazarevic accused NATO of attacking hospitals, schools and residential areas.

NATO spokesmen continued to face tough questions from reporters about last week's attack on a convoy near Djakovica.

Yugoslav authorities said that several NATO attacks on civilian convoys killed as many as 85 ethnic Albanians last Wednesday.

NATO admitted that one of its pilots mistakenly dropped a bomb on a civilian vehicle near Djakovica. The alliance has fended off detailed questions about the incident, saying an investigation is continuing.

Adding to the confusion was a statement from the Pentagon on Saturday that NATO played an audiotape from a pilot not involved in the bombing of the civilian vehicle when it accepted blame for the incident.

Marani said NATO played the audiotape "to clarify what was the process, the procedure of a pilot involved in an action of that type."

NATO did not mean to imply that the pilot was involved in the hit on the civilian vehicle, he said.

Monday's London Daily Express quotes unnamed "senior defense sources" that say the Royal Air Force warned a U.S. bomber pilot not to attack the refugee convoy in Kosovo minutes before the raid.

The pilot of a British Harrier GR-7 radioed the U.S. F-16 saying he could clearly see civilian vehicles among military ones after a low-level flyover, the article reported. NATO so far has made no comment on this report.

Correspondent Ben Wedeman contributed to this report.