U.N. and NATO troops clash with Serbs in Kosovo

By Branislav Krstic

MITROVICA, Kosovo (Reuters) - NATO troops came under fire during Serb riots in the northern Kosovo flashpoint of Mitrovica on Monday, in the worst violence in the territory since the Albanian majority declared independence last month.

The rioting was a challenge to the authority of NATO, the United Nations and European Union, underscoring fears that Kosovo could be heading for partition one month after breaking away from Serbia.

Reuters witnesses in the town reported hearing gunfire as hundreds of Serbs clashed with NATO peacekeepers and U.N. police. A French NATO spokesman said automatic weapons fire had been aimed at peacekeepers but gave no further details.

United Nations police were ordered to pull out after hundreds of Serbs opposed to Kosovo's independence fought back against a dawn raid to evict them from a court building they occupied last week.

Police and troops fired tear gas at protesters throwing stones and firecrackers. Cars were set ablaze and several police and NATO troops were hurt in an explosion.

"Eight French KFOR soldiers are injured with grenades, stones and molotov cocktails," said French spokesman Etienne du Fayet de la Tour. Their wounds were not life-threatening, he said.

KFOR is the U.N.-mandated NATO peacekeeping force in Kosovo, where about 120,000 Serbs remain and form a bitter minority among two million ethnic Albanians.

The raid to retake the court coincided with the March 17 anniversary of Kosovo Albanian riots against Serbs in 2004, in which 19 people were killed and hundreds of homes and churches burned in two days of chaos that caught NATO flat-footed.

It was this flare-up that pushed the West to start talks on a final status solution for Kosovo after years in limbo as an international protectorate following the Balkan wars of the 1990s.

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"An order has been given for UNMIK police to withdraw from the north (of Kosovo) because of ongoing violent riots," a spokesman said in Kosovo's capital, Pristina.

"More than 100 people have been treated for the effects of tear gas," Mitrovica hospital director Milan Ivanovic said.

The violence started after several hundred U.N. special police backed by NATO peacekeepers stormed a U.N. court and arrested dozens of Serbs who had seized the building on Friday.

Rioters attacked three U.N. vehicles, breaking doors and freeing around 10 detainees from the raid, witnesses said.

Some U.N. vans with detainees were still in the courtyard of the compound, in a standoff with dozens of Serb protesters outside blocking their exit.

The takeover of the court on Friday was the latest effort by Serbs to assert control over policing and justice in north Kosovo following the ethnic Albanian majority's declaration of independence on Feb 17.

More than 50 court protesters were arrested and taken to prison in Pristina, a KFOR spokesman said.

"KFOR is securing the areas in the north where Kosovo Albanians live," the spokesman said, referring to a handful of Albanian communities in the Serb-dominated north.

The Kosovo Serbs, almost half of whom live in the north, reject Kosovo's Western-backed declaration of independence.

Supported by Russia, Belgrade has vowed to never accept the secession and to extend its authority over Serb areas, particularly the north.

Serbia lost control of its southern province in 1999, when NATO intervened to halt the ethnic cleansing of civilians in a counter-insurgency war, and the United Nations took over.

Kosovo's secession was backed by the United States and the European Union, which is deploying a supervisory mission to take over some of the U.N.'s tasks. Some analysts fear Serbia is now trying to partition the territory.

(Additional reporting by Fatos Bytyci, Shaban Buza; writing by Matt Robinson and Douglas Hamilton; editing by Timothy Heritage)