By FISNIK ABRASHI, Associated Press Writer
LUCANE, Yugoslavia (AP) - A peacekeeping team with two American officers on Monday ventured into a village on the front lines of fighting between Serb forces and ethnic Albanian militants outside Kosovo, investigating the upsurge in violence that has raised tensions in the region.
The Americans and a Slovenian officer, who entered Lucane hours after heavy mortar and machinegun fire in the region, poked their heads into a bloodstained and bullet-shattered truck that rebels said was hit in a Serb attack the day before, killing a rebel commander.
Lucane lies on the edge of a buffer zone set up along the border between NATO (news - web sites)-controlled Kosovo and the rest of Serbia. Ethnic Albanian rebels hold positions on the west side of the Binacka Morava River, which runs through the village, and Serb police hold the east side, less than 50 yards away.
The peacekeepers, part of a liaison team between NATO and the Yugoslav army, was asked by the rebels to view the damage. The team has entered the buffer zone in the past, but its visit now underlined NATO's concern that recent fighting could destabilize Kosovo.
Joined by rebel commander Shefket Musliu, the peacekeepers perused the bullet-scarred red Nissan in which Commander Bala - who did not use a first name - was killed in apparent reprisal for a land mine blast Sunday that killed three Serb policemen outside Lucane.
Without comment, the peacekeepers followed Musliu to other areas which rebels say were hit in the village. The peacekeepers inspected bullet holes and craters the militants claim were caused by Yugoslav forces in exchanges of fire Sunday and Monday.
``Tell them that if they want to shoot, they can shoot at us, not at our civilians,'' Musliu told the delegation as he pointed at softball-sized hole in the wall of a house hit in Sunday's clashes.
Yugoslavia has demanded NATO peacekeepers - who are not allowed to patrol in the buffer zone since it lies outside Kosovo - prevent ethnic Albanian militants in the province from entering the zone. Only lightly armed Serbian police are allowed into the zone, and the militants have been able to take control of most of the strip since November.
The militants want to join the zone - which, like Kosovo, has an ethnic Albanian majority - to the province, which came under control of NATO-led peacekeepers in 1999.
NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson issued a statement Monday deploring the escalation of violence, and urging the leadership of both sides to ``to exercise maximum restraint.''
``The problems in the region cannot be solved by violence - they can only be settled through direct negotiations between the parties,'' the statement said.
Since November, the militants have attacked Serbian police inside the zone and have sometimes launched attacks across the line into the rest of Serbia. The land mine blast Sunday took place about 200 yards outside the zone.
The new fighting further fueled tensions in the region. On Monday, U.N. officials raised the death toll in a bus bombing Friday inside Kosovo to 10 Serb civilians. Two protests of the bombing by Serbs in Gracanica and Kosovska Mitrovica ended Monday without incident.
A senior rebel commander, Sami Azemi, denied any connection with either the mine blast or the bus attack and condemned both.
With violence mounting, top Yugoslav and Serb leaders met late Sunday, and President Vojislav Kostunica (news - web sites)'s office released a statement promising ``measures against terrorism'' in the area.
``That means that we'll no longer allow that our troops and citizens be moving targets for Albanian terrorists,'' Zoran Zivkovic, Serbia's Interior Minister, told The Associated Press. ``We had maximum patience, but this is not the fight for democracy (by the Albanian extremists), but plain terrorism.''