Chinese protesters burn U.S. flag RELATED VIDEO How could NATO make such a mistake? CNN's Carl Rochelle reports from the Pentagon. (May 8) Real 28K 80K Windows Media 28K 80K The extent of the damage to China's embassy in Belgrade is evident in daylight Saturday, as CNN's Alessio Vinci reports (May 8) Real 28K 80K Windows Media 28K 80K CNN's Rebecca MacKinnon reports on clashes outside the U.S. Embassy in Beijing (May 8) Real 28K 80K Windows Media 28K 80K CNN's Brent Sadler reports on NATO's strikes on the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade (May 8) Real 28K 80K Windows Media 28K 80K To view the latest video streams on the strikes in Kosovo, use the arrow buttons below to scroll through the video gallery.        Windows Media Real        28 K 80 K IMAGE GALLERY To the corners of the world: The flight of Kosovo's refugees The Serbs and Kosovo  ALSO: Protesters attack U.S. Embassy in Beijing POWs beaten, shackled in Yugoslavia, military says Russian diplomatic visit to Britain canceled  THE DELUGE OF REFUGEES: Where are they going?  CNN WORLD REPORT CONFERENCE: Follow CNN's 1999 World Report Conference this week in Atlanta and New York  MESSAGE BOARD: Crisis in Kosovo  MAPS: NATO officials describe the air campaign  IN-DEPTH SPECIAL: NATO at 50 Strike on Yugoslavia

May 9, 1999
Web posted at: 3:02 a.m. EDT (0702 GMT)

In this story: Bombing campaign continues 'Very, very bad mistake' Police, demonstrators converge in Beijing Russia forges on with diplomacy RELATED STORIES, SITES

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (CNN) -- Nearly two days after NATO's mistaken bombing of the Chinese embassy, knotted bed sheets flapped against the heavily damaged building on Sunday, stark evidence of how trapped embassy workers tried to escape as flames consumed the structure.

Virulent anti-NATO and anti-U.S. protests continued in China on Sunday, while many non-NATO countries condemned the attack. U.S. and NATO officials renewed their apologies for the embassy strike, calling it a tragic mistake.

In Washington, Defense Secretary William Cohen and CIA Director George Tenet issued a joint statement saying that NATO believed the building housed a Yugoslav military facility, not the Chinese Embassy.

"Those involved in targeting mistakenly believed that the Federal Directorate of Supply and Procurement was at the location that was hit," the statement said.

"It was the result of neither pilot nor mechanical error," Cohen and Tenet stated. "Clearly, faulty information led to a mistake in the initial targeting of this facility. In addition, the extensive process in place used to select and validate targets did not correct this original error."

Chinese television reported that three people were killed and 20 injured in the attack. Five Chinese diplomats remained in the intensive care unit of a Belgrade hospital on Sunday.

Although U.S. President Bill Clinton offered "profound condolences" to the Chinese for the mistake, he said the NATO campaign was needed to stop a Yugoslav crackdown on ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.

"Someone, sometime, has got to stand up against this sort of ethnic cleansing and killing people wholesale...soley because of their religion and ethnicity," Clinton said.

Cohen and Tenet said the NATO strikes would continue despite the Chinese Embassy bombing. "A review of porocedures has convinced us that this was an anomoly that is unlikely to occur again," they said. "Therefore, NATO authorities intend to continue and intensify the air campaign."

Despite relative quiet in Belgrade early Sunday, CNN's Jonathan Karl at the Pentagon said targets elsewhere in Yugoslavia were struck, and that NATO was running more than 500 sorties a night.

In Belgrade, workers stacked damaged books from facilities bombed on Friday, including the Hotel Yugoslavia, which NATO said had been used as a headquarters for Zeliko Raznjatovic, a Serb paramilitary leader also known as Arkan, who has been indicted for war crimes in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Raznjatovic said on Saturday that NATO's attempt to strike at his group, the Tigers, was unsuccessful.

"They didn't hit no headquarters of Tigers. They didn't hit even one Tiger," he said. "They're all alive, and they're going to wait for the NATO ground troops."

We've recognized that this is a mistake, and this is a mistake we regret," said NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana.

"(Friday) night, a great deal of what was done was done accurately and professionally," said NATO spokesman Jamie Shea. "Of course, everything is overshadowed, as we expect, by this one very, very bad mistake."

Solana said the attack on the embassy would not sway NATO from its goal, which he said is "none other than to stop the ethnic cleansing (in Kosovo) and to assure that Kosovars can return to their homes in peace and in security."

There is no such thing as clean combat," said Pentagon spokesman Ken Bacon in Washington. "We have the best trained forces, but there is no way to avoid collateral damage or unintended consequences when weapons are employed to solve what might have been solved diplomatically."

As many as 1,000 military police stood ready on Sunday as crowds of angry protesters swarmed toward the U.S. Embassy in Beijing.

CNN's Rebecca MacKinnon said up to 20,000 protesters had gathered and it was not clear whether police, including some in riot gear, would be able to contain the crowd if violence broke out.

Tom Cooney, a U.S. Embassy spokesman in Beijing, said U.S. officials conveyed their profound regrets to the Chinese for the incident in Belgrade.

Although many of the protesters were students, people of all ages were represented in the gathering crowds, MacKinnon reported. She said that the U.S. explanation that damage to the embassy was unintentional was not carrying a great deal of weight with the Chinese.

In Chengdu, China, protesters scaled walls and broke windows to protest the Belgrade embassy bombing. Some hurled rocks at embassy buildings and cars in Beijing.

U.S. embassy workers and their families were advised to stay home, out of concern for their safety.

"NATO is going beyond all borders," said Russia's U.N. ambassador Sergey Lavrov. "We are really disturbed over this barbaric action. We are outraged...and we call and demand an immediate investigation."

"The Security Council cannot let this go without any consequences," he said, after China called for an emergency session of the U.N. Security Council late Friday. The Security Council met through the night, until Saturday morning.

Despite condemnation by Russia and several other countries, Russia's special peace envoy, Viktor Chernomyrdin, continued his efforts to negotiate peace in Yugoslavia. He met in Bonn, Germany, with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and Carl Bildt, the former Swedish prime minister who has been appointed as a special U.N. envoy on the Kosovo crisis.

Correspondents Brent Sadler, John Raedler and Carl Rochelle contributed to this report.

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