Local authorities say at least 16 people were killed, including 11 children RELATED VIDEO: CNN's Alessio Vinci visits bomb site in Surdulica. (Warning: video contains graphic images.) (April 28) Windows Media 28K 80K CNN's Tom Mintier reports on the refugee camp revival of a Kosovo Albanian-language newspaper (April 28) Real 28K 80K Windows Media 28K 80K Greece, a neighbor of Albania, has set up a refugee camp in Tirana. CNN's John Psaropoulos takes a tour. (April 28) Real 28K 80K Windows Media 28K 80K To view the latest video streams on the Littleton school shooting, use the arrow buttons below to scroll through the video gallery.        Windows Media Real        28 K 80 K IMAGE GALLERY: Images of NATO bomb attack on Serbian TV headquarters The Kosovo refugees The Serbs and Kosovo  THE DELUGE OF REFUGEES: Where are they going?  ALSO: New surge of Kosovo refugees threatens to overwhelm camps 2,100 activated reservists headed to Europe  MESSAGE BOARD: Crisis in Kosovo  MAPS: NATO officials describe the air campaign  IN-DEPTH SPECIAL: NATO at 50 Strike on Yugoslavia

April 28, 1999
Web posted at: 10:32 a.m. EDT (1432 GMT)

In this story: Residents report many explosions Serb atrocities alleged Red Cross visits captured U.S. soldiers Russia demands end of bombing to launch peace talks NATO: Serbs demoralized U.N.: Oil embargo would hurt civilians first RELATED STORIES, SITES

LONDON (CNN) -- Britain's defense secretary expressed regret Wednesday for a NATO attack that Yugoslavia said killed at least 16 civilians, including 11 children, in the Serbian village of Surdulica.

NATO has admitted that one of its bombs -- meant for an army barracks in the town, about 320 kilometers (200 miles) south of Belgrade -- missed its target and hit a residential area about noon Tuesday (6 a.m. EDT).

"NATO makes every effort possible to avoid civilian casualties, and in more than 4,400 attacks by NATO, only a tiny fraction have led to unintended consequences, including the loss of civilian lives," Defense Secretary George Robertson said.

A NATO source said Tuesday that a U.S. F-15 may have been responsible for the deaths in Surdulica when one of its laser-guided bombs missed its target by about 500 yards. NATO said smoke from a previous strike muddled its guidance system.

The airstrike nevertheless succeeded in destroying the barracks, Robertson said. And despite Tuesday's deaths, the number of civilians killed by NATO air raids is dwarfed by the scale of the humanitarian crisis faced by ethnic Albanian refugees from Kosovo, he said.

Robertson dared Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to allow international television crews unrestricted travel throughout the country as well as the ability to air their footage within Yugoslavia.

CNN's Alessio Vinci was taken to Surdulica by Yugoslav military officials late Tuesday. Though NATO said only one of its bombs was off-target, residents said they heard many explosions. Local officials said 16 missiles hit the area..

"I heard two explosions far away, then the bombing started. All in all, I heard 10 explosions. After I heard the planes going away, I ran out to see what happened. I was the first one here. It was horrible, there were body parts all around," one resident said.

Journalists escorted by the Yugoslav army saw evidence of extensive damage in two separate locations. At least four homes were leveled and personal belongings were scattered all around.

Several hundred homes were damaged in the attack, local officials said.

Surdulica Mayor Miroljub Stoiljkovic said he could not understand the attack. "An army barracks nearby was already attacked and destroyed on April 6 and the military depot is six kilometers away," he said.

Vinci's military escort refused requests to visit the barracks, saying that previous NATO attacks had damaged the access road.

Just before Tuesday's attack, Yugoslav officials in Belgrade released the latest casualty figures among the civilian population since the beginning of the war. They said more than 400 had been killed and more than 4,000 injured.

Under military escort, Vinci also visited the local hospital and morgue where he counted 16 bodies which he believed included 11 children.

The Pentagon has had no official comment on the claims of civilian casualties.

In Belgrade early Wednesday, air raid sirens sounded and were followed by a series of explosions in the capital. It was not clear what may have been hit.

Hundreds of homes were damaged

The state-run Tanjug news agency said "planes of the enemy NATO alliance, in a massive onslaught, bombed the wider regions of Belgrade," but gave no details.

The Beta news agency said NATO jets attacked military barracks in Belgrade's Topcider residential district, on the capital's southern edge. Residents of the nearby Dedinje district, where Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and other senior officials live, said the explosions shattered windows in their homes.

Meanwhile, German Defense Minister Rudolf Scharping says he has evidence of Serb atrocities before the airstrikes began last month.

Scharping said a German member of an international observer mission took photographs of an early morning Serb police raid in January in the village of Rugova.

The photographs show about 15 corpses in what looks like a farmyard. The victims appear to be civilians.

"These pictures are evidence, the uniforms you can see here are the uniforms of the Serb special police that shows clearly that the army, special police and gangs as well as prisoners are involved in murders," Scharping said Tuesday.

Scharping said the observer turned the photos over earlier this month and is in counseling to deal with the shock of what he'd seen.

Earlier, Yugoslavia allowed the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit three U.S. service members captured near the Macedonia border March 31. The ICRC initially met with the three Monday, but were not allowed a private meeting.

On Tuesday, the private meeting -- required under the Geneva Conventions -- was allowed, and a doctor was also permitted to examine the three.

Spokeswoman Suzanne Berger said that Staff Sgt. Christopher Stone, Staff Sgt. Andrew Ramirez and Spc. Steven Gonzales were in "satisfactory condition."

In Moscow, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott met with Russian peace envoy Viktor Chernomyrdin and Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov to determine if Russia has made any progress in brokering a settlement to the five-week-old air campaign.

Chernomyrdin, a former Russian prime minister, said NATO must halt its airstrikes to clear the way for talks, a condition rejected repeatedly by the alliance.

Chernomyrdin also said Belgrade would accept an "international presence" in Kosovo with Russia's participation but acknowledged that such a group, which would be unarmed or only lightly armed, fell far short of what NATO is demanding.

NATO has ordered Milosevic to pull his troops out of Kosovo, grant autonomy to the majority ethnic Albanian province and allow for the return of all refugees.

Milosevic has rejected the idea of an armed international force on Serb soil, and refuses to resume talks on the Kosovo issue until the NATO bombing campaign stops.

With Milosevic refusing to bend, Yugoslav Deputy Prime Minister Vuk Draskovic began calling Sunday on Serb officials to "tell the truth" about the conflict.

"We cannot defeat NATO," he told CNN on Monday. "We have no right to have such ambitions."

Draskovic blamed NATO for the "aggression" against his "poor, innocent" country, however.

Some U.S. intelligence sources believe Draskovic is trying to position himself to succeed Milosevic. But other U.S. officials say Draskovic would have been silenced by now if he were not speaking with the blessing of the Yugoslav president.

NATO's bombing campaign is working, and working well, said Supreme Allied Commander Gen. Wesley Clark in Brussels.

NATO struck again early Tuesday at the Yugoslav infrastructure, targeting oil distribution and supply facilities, army assembly areas and communications facilities.

The targets included a radio-television transmission array atop the former headquarters of Milosevic's ruling Socialist Party in Belgrade. It was the second time in less than a week that the building was hit.

"NATO's solidarity is growing stronger every day," Clark said. "Every day more resources are becoming available. The noose around Yugoslavia as it continues its inhumane policies in Kosovo is tightening."

But Yugoslavia charged that the NATO campaign is itself inhumane.

NATO has "concentrated primarily on civilian targets," Yugoslav Foreign Minister Zivadin Jovanovic said in a letter to the president of the U.N. Security Council. "NATO bombs dropped on the towns and villages to date have killed about a thousand civilians, including a great many children. A few thousand civilians have sustained injuries and will be crippled for life."

And, Jovanovic said, NATO's relentless bombing of oil and chemical facilities has "created an environmental disaster threatening almost the whole of Europe."

Clark, speaking at a NATO news briefing, said that NATO attacks are demoralizing the Yugoslav army and rendering Milosevic's forces ineffective.

"Essentially his air defense system is ineffective," he said. "When it's turned on, when it attempts to target us, it is destroyed. So what he has tried to do is conserve it by using it sparingly and when he uses it, we strike back and take it out."

NATO military officials on Tuesday discussed having allied warships block oil shipments to Yugoslavia by stopping and searching ships under threat of force.

But some allies have reservations about the move, which must be approved by all 19 NATO governments. On Monday, the European Union banned fuel shipments to Yugoslavia but left it to NATO to enforce any Adriatic Sea naval blockade.

U.N. Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Sergio Vieira de Mello told the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday that an oil embargo against Yugoslavia would hurt the civilian population before it had an impact on military forces who are the intended target.

"Clearly the civilian population would suffer," he said.

Briefing the council on what he called the "major humanitarian disaster" in and around Kosovo, Vieira de Mello said even without an oil embargo, reports indicate that most remaining fuel stocks in Yugoslavia are being diverted to the military.

Vieira de Mello said an embargo would also further restrict the ability of international humanitarian agencies to assist civilians in Yugoslavia. And he said it would make it nearly impossible to plant or harvest crops.

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