According to NATO, its air war is taking a deadly toll on Yugoslavia RELATED VIDEO Ethnic Albanian men who say they were prisoners of the Serbs entered a refugee camp at Kukes, Albania, recently. CNN's Martin Savidge spoke with them. (May 24) Real 28K 80K Windows Media 28K 80K CNN's Tom Mintier describes the newest influx of ethnic Albanian refugees into Macedonia (May 24) 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 A cracked window to a war To the corners of the world: The flight of Kosovo's refugees  ALSO: Aid workers see possible 'final push' to move out ethnic Albanians  THE DELUGE OF REFUGEES: Where are they going?  MESSAGE BOARD: Crisis in Kosovo  MAPS: NATO officials describe the air campaign  IN-DEPTH SPECIAL: NATO at 50 Strike on Yugoslavia

May 25, 1999
Web posted at: 4:49 a.m. EDT (0849 GMT)

In this story: 'Gigantic' crisis in Kosovo, U.N. envoy says End to bombing 'in Milosevic's hands' NATO: Milosevic 'cracking' Support for Milosevic strong in Belgrade Call for larger peacekeeping force RELATED STORIES, SITES

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (CNN) -- NATO began a third month of airstrikes against Yugoslavia overnight as the alliance predicted victory over a "cracking" Yugoslav leadership.

Yugoslav media reported that NATO targeted the Serbian interior ministry about 3 a.m. Tuesday, and the independent Beta news agency reported that "two or three missiles" which hit the ministry failed to explode. The ministry building had been attacked when NATO aircraft bombed the Yugoslav capital for the first time on April 3.

Jets fired at Mount Cer, 60 miles west of Belgrade, where a transmitter is located, according to Yugoslav media, which also reported strikes at Batajnica airport, northwest of Belgrade, and the suburb of Rakovica, the site of a large underground military complex.

A power tranmission line was struck near Obrenovac, 20 miles southwest of Belgrade, and a TV transmitter was hit near Uzice. The state-run Tanjug news agency said missiles hit power lines in Boljevacka Forest near Obrenovac and caused blackouts in some parts of Belgrade.

In Kosovo, missiles reportedly hit Prizren and the civilian airport at Slatina and attacks were reported on villages around Prizren and Istok.

Ten strong explosions rocked the northern city of Novi Sad near a refinery and power station and four missiles fired by NATO jets struck civilian targets around Glogovac, 15 miles southwest of Kosovo's provincial capital, Pristina, Tanjug reported.

The independent Beta news agency reported an attack late Monday on the southern city of Nis but provided no details, except to say a "big flash" could be seen on the city's horizon.

Other NATO attacks have devastated Yugoslavia's power grid and seriously threatened water supplies, Yugoslav media said.

Belgrade's water supplies were down by 90 percent, according to some reports. Fifteen NATO bombs reportedly hit water pumps early Monday near the northwestern town of Sremska Mitrovica.

Other pumping stations were shut down because of power outages caused by NATO hits in Belgrade, Novi Sad and Nis. Millions of people were without electricity.

"Every effort is being made in this difficult situation to restore power supply to priority users -- hospitals, the water company, bakeries -- in order to alleviate the humanitarian disaster being caused by NATO," Serbia's power company told Tanjug.

Meanwhile, NATO on Tuesday said that attacks against Serb forces in Kosovo continued overnight, striking several artillary emplacements, military vehicles, a radar site and logistic support base. However, poor weather in the region meant that fewer sorties were flown than in recent days.

Attacks against other targets in Yugoslavia continued, NATO said, with many strikes focused on the Milosovic regime's higher level command and control facilities.

NATO said targets included the Dobanovci presidential villa, the Serbian interior ministry, an air-defense operations center at Rakovica, electric power transmission towers near Belgrade and radio relay towers at Uzica and Sremska Karlovci.

Other attacks included strikes on airfields at Batajnica and Sjenica, a radar site and a petroleum storage site at Novi Sad, and an ammunition storage facility at Vrdnik, NATO said.

NATO said all of its aircraft returned safely.

'Gigantic' crisis in Kosovo, U.N. envoy says

The head of a U.N. fact-finding mission to Yugoslavia said Monday he found the humanitarian situation in Kosovo worse than expected.

Sergio de Mello, the U.N. undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, said visits to more than seven Kosovo towns over three days showed conditions in the province to be "a lot worse than we feared."

"In a word, it is pretty revolting," he told a news conference the day after arriving in Montenegro from Kosovo.

Although mission members were unable to visit all the places they wanted, what they heard and saw was enough for "a picture of what went on. Everything indicates that there is an attempt to displace, ethnically cleanse Kosovo," de Mello said, calling the scale of the crisis "gigantic."

End to bombing 'in Milosevic's hands'

NATO began its bombing campaign on March 24 to force Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to comply with an international agreement to resolve the conflict in Kosovo between Serbs and ethnic Albanians, who seek independence or autonomy.

"Let the people of Yugoslavia be quite clear," said British Defense Secretary George Robertson on Monday. "The bombing can end at any time. It's in Milosevic's hands, and he knows our conditions, which are reasonable and sensible, and nothing less than full compliance will do."

But Russian envoy Viktor Chernomyrdin said Monday that he had persuaded NATO to bend on one of its conditions -- a complete withdrawal of Yugoslav troops from Kosovo.

"It has taken two or three weeks to convince our counterparts -- the United States and (other) NATO countries -- that while withdrawing the (Yugoslav) troops, it's necessary to leave some of them behind," Chernomyrdin said.

Chernomyrdin has been meeting with Finnish President Marrti Ahtisaari and U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott to find a diplomatic solution to the war. Neither Talbott nor Ahtisaari, who plan to meet again in Moscow on Wednesday with Chernomyrdin, commented on the Russian's statements.

NATO has been considering allowing Serb troops to guard some historical sites in Kosovo at the end of the war.

NATO: Milosevic 'cracking'

NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana said Monday that Milosevic is suffering from international isolation and increasing internal dissent, proving that NATO should stick with its air campaign.

"We want to maintain the strategy at this very moment which is producing results rapidly," Solana told The Associated Press. Milosevic "is cracking. No question about it," he said.

NATO's air commander, U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Michael Short, predicted the alliance would accomplish its goals in the next two months. He told The Washington Post that NATO's bombing campaign will chase Yugoslav forces out of Kosovo by mid-summer.

Support for Milosevic strong in Belgrade

But CNN's Walter Rodgers reported from Belgrade that NATO's relentless attacks appeared to have no adverse effect on the public's opinion of Milosevic. Instead, Rodgers said, Belgrade's citizenry appears increasingly angry at NATO.

The alliance, however, continued to report growing disaffection with Milosevic's policies, ranging from anti-war protests in Serbian towns to the desertion of some Yugoslav troops.

Milosevic balked at a provision in the Kosovo peace plan calling for an international peacekeeping force in the province with NATO at its core. The Yugoslav president has said he would accept a lightly armed force controlled by the United Nations, but NATO insists that nothing less than a fully armed contingent can guarantee the safety of ethnic Albanian refugees returning to their homes.

Call for larger peacekeeping force

On Tuesday, representatives of NATO countries will discuss a possible increase in the number of troops to be deployed as a peacekeeping force when the bombing campaign ends.

NATO now has about 13,000 troops, mostly British and French, in Macedonia as part of a future force, called KFOR. The Pentagon said 45,000 to 50,000 troops likely would be needed for that operation, up from an initial assessment of 28,000.

The call for an increase prompted protests from Yugoslavia's top diplomat at the United Nations, Vladislav Jovanovic, who called the possibility "a very dangerous new step in the wrong direction."

"This is a disguise for invasion, which is in preparation, and nobody can call it a liberation of Kosovo," he said on CNN's "Late Edition."

But NATO denied the troops were preparing to invade Kosovo.

"Nobody is talking about putting in ground troops into a combat situation," said NATO spokesman Jamie Shea. "Everybody agrees that the air campaign has to run its course until such time as those Serb forces are degraded, diminished, demoralized and on their way out."

Correspondents Walter Rodgers, Carl Rochelle and Matthew Chance contributed to this report.

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