Peacekeeping Force

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia -- The international peacekeeping force in Kosovo is clamping down hard on the Kosovo Liberation Army, seizing arms caches almost daily and confiscating documents and even cash in what some officials say is a determined effort to break the movement.NATO and United Nations officials maintain that the tougher action is routine, part of an agreement signed almost seven weeks ago that aimed to dismantle the rebel operation within three months.Until now, the NATO-led peacekeeping force has given the guerrillas a fairly wide berth.

PARIS -- The Kosovo peace effort was on the verge of collapse yesterday as Yugoslavia moved heavy tanks and thousands more troops into the province at the same time that Serbian negotiators here insisted on extensive changes to a draft peace agreement.Officials in Washington warned that Yugoslav seemed to be "bracing for war" instead of preparing for peace with about 30,000 Serbian troops now in or near the province.The heavy Yugoslavian M-84 tanks that rolled into the province, in violation of previous pledges, were the first to be seen in Kosovo in at least five months.

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia -- After weeks of complex negotiations, NATO and United Nations officials have agreed to the formation of a civilian emergency force from the remnants of the Kosovo Liberation Army.The army, once a guerrilla force against the Serbs, is being dismantled this month under U.N. supervision. But though its successor, tentatively called the Kosovo Corps, will retain much of its military command structure, the duties of the new force remain a sensitive issue.Though NATO sees the Kosovo Corps as a civilian force, the rebel army's officers inevitably see it as a potential core of a future national army and are selling it to their followers as such.

WASHINGTON -- By the middle of this month, thousands of U.S. soldiers could be sent to the strife-torn Yugoslav province of Kosovo and remain for years as part of a NATO peacekeeping force of up to 35,000 soldiers whose duties and duration are only in the vague planning stage.Officials acknowledge that the plan could go terribly wrong: The Serbs could refuse to cooperate and could, as a consequence, be bombed. Kosovo's ethnic Albanian rebels -- the Kosovo Liberation Army -- could prove so intransigent that they would be left at the mercy of the Serbs.

WASHINGTON -- Somewhere along the border with Macedonia this morning, a NATO general was slated to present Yugoslav officers with a detailed plan to remove their troops from Kosovo, paving the way for U.S. Marines and other NATO forces to enter the war-torn province as early as next week.British Lt. Gen. Sir Michael Jackson's plan will call for strict timetables for the withdrawal of all 40,000 Serbian army and special police forces from Kosovo, officials said.Pentagon spokesman Kenneth H. Bacon said the troops will be ordered to move from west to east along three major roads that have remained unscathed during the 72 days of airstrikes under Operation Allied Force.

WASHINGTON -- As Britain and France announced plans to send thousands more troops to the Balkans, President Clinton scaled back his offer of U.S. ground forces to help United Nations peacekeepers yesterday and said American soldiers would be sent there only in a "highly unlikely" emergency.But while cutting back the prospective American role on the ground, U.S. officials expanded it in the air, as U.S. Defense Secretary William J. Perry pledged to offer aircraft flown by American pilots in support of Britain's and France's new quick-reaction force.

WASHINGTON -- The prospect of peace in the former Yugoslavia advances the timetable for deployment of U.S. troops to one of the world's most explosive areas, and confronts defense planners with crucial questions.How many U.S. troops should be sent, under whose command and for how long?The Clinton administration has put a ceiling of 25,000 peacekeepers, or about a full division, on a U.S. deployment in Bosnia. The U.S. force could be smaller, but Defense Secretary William J. Perry said this week that it would be "the biggest, toughest, meanest force in the area strong enough that it provides an enormous disincentive to anyone messing with it."

WASHINGTON -- The Clinton administration struggled yesterday to persuade United Nations peacekeepers to remain in Bosnia, fearing that any operation to withdraw them would cost the lives of American troops committed to help.President Clinton has promised that the United States will deploy up to 25,000 troops as part of any NATO force that would withdraw the U.N. peacekeepers.While NATO would not take sides, the withdrawal operation could bring U.S. troops into ground conflict with Bosnian combatants for the first time in the three-year war and inflict American casualties, Pentagon planners say. It could also lead to a new humanitarian catastrophe, the State Department warned yesterday.

WASHINGTON -- After a campaign of bombing and aggressive diplomacy, the Clinton administration expressed confidence yesterday that it won't have to send U.S. troops into Bosnia's dangerous terrain this fall to help withdraw United Nations peacekeepers.President Clinton had pledged to send up to 25,000 U.S. troops to help in any U.N. pullout from Bosnia, and the likelihood that some of those troops would be killed or wounded has hung heavily over the administration.Now that the West has united behind a tougher posture, the administration says, it has dodged a bullet.

PETIT GOAVE, Haiti -- To know the dilemma of Gustave Jasmin and Army Capt. John LaDelfa is to know the dilemma of Haiti and the United States after six weeks of U.S. military presence.Mr. Jasmin, coordinator of a group that supports President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, wants Captain LaDelfa's U.S. Special Forces soldiers to aggressively disarm paramilitaries who supported the departed military regime."They still have their guns," said Mr. Jasmin, 25. "They say they are simply waiting for the American soldiers to leave so they will take their revenge."

WASHINGTON - Even as Russia pledged to begin withdrawing its forces from neighboring Georgia today, U.S. officials said the Russian military had been moving launchers for short-range ballistic missiles into South Ossetia, a step that appeared intended to tighten its hold on the breakaway territory. The Russian military deployed several SS-21 missile launchers and supply vehicles to South Ossetia on Friday, according to U.S. officials familiar with intelligence reports. From the new launching positions north of Tskhinvali, the South Ossetian capital, the missiles can reach much of Georgia, including Tbilisi, the capital.

ABU SUROUJ, Sudan -- As Darfur smolders in the aftermath of a new government offensive, a long-sought peacekeeping force, expected to be the world's largest, is in danger of failing even before it begins its mission because of bureaucratic delays, stonewalling by Sudan's government and reluctance from troop-contributing countries to send peacekeeping forces into an active conflict. The force, which officially took over from an overstretched and exhausted African Union force in Darfur on Jan. 1, has just more than 9,000 of an expected 26,000 soldiers and police officers, and will not fully deploy until the end of the year, U.N. officials said.

WASHINGTON -- With the Bush administration ordering new sanctions against the government of Sudan yesterday, experts said any hope of alleviating suffering in the war-torn Darfur region will depend on the questionable ability of the United States to gain broader international support. President Bush, declaring that the United States "will not avert our eyes" from a crisis that has killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced at least 2 million others, imposed a ban on Americans doing business with 31 mostly government-controlled Sudanese businesses, two leaders of the Sudanese government and a rebel chief.

PHILADELPHIA -- As world leaders gathered at the United Nations this week for the opening of the 61st General Assembly, the shadow of Darfur hung over them all. On Tuesday, from the U.N. podium, President Bush again labeled the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of civilians in Darfur as genocide. Yet the killing, conducted by Sudanese government forces and militias, is intensifying. Sudan is blocking a proposed U.N. peacekeeping force of 20,000, which would have strengthened an unarmed observer force from the African Union.

BRUSSELS, Belgium -- After a week of confusion and missteps, Europe pledged to add up to 6,900 troops to the U.N. peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, officials said at an emergency meeting of European Union foreign ministers here yesterday. But the officials cautioned that the force would not be used to disarm Hezbollah. That job, if it is done at all, will be left to the Lebanese government and army. The international force, joined by Lebanese national soldiers, is the solution that world powers agreed to after a month of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, an Islamist militia that dominates southern Lebanon.

PARIS --The shaky U.N.-brokered cease-fire in Lebanon suffered another blow yesterday when the European countries that have been called upon to provide the backbone of a peacekeeping force delayed a decision on committing troops until the mission is more clearly defined. Their reservations postponed any action on the force at least until Wednesday, when the European Union will take up the issue. Haunted by their experiences in Bosnia in the 1990s, when their forces were unable to stop widespread ethnic killing, European governments are insisting upon clarifying the chain of command and rules of engagement before plunging into the even greater complexities of the Middle East.

UNITED NATIONS -- The United Nations scrambled yesterday to assemble a peacekeeping force for Lebanon after an offer of only 200 troops from France, which is expected to lead the contingent. A handful of countries made firm commitments at a meeting where Deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch-Brown asked for 3,500 troops who could arrive in south Lebanon within 10 days to augment the existing U.N. force of 2,000. Italy and Spain, who are expected to be Europe's largest contributors, said they must receive Cabinet approval before making specific offers.

WASHINGTON -- As diplomats talk about the prospects of a new multinational peacekeeping force to prevent further fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, a lesson or two can be drawn from the United Nations' multinational observer force of about 2,000 soldiers that is already there. The experience of the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon, UNIFIL, has not been a good one. On the scene since 1978 and comprising soldiers from France, Poland, India, Italy and a few other countries, UNIFIL was unable to stop the July 12 Hezbollah border raid that resulted in the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers.

KHARTOUM, Sudan -- As rebel leaders sit at the Green Village Hotel in Khartoum, the prospect of peace in the Darfur region of Sudan suddenly becomes tangible. Looking slightly uncomfortable in suits and ties, they are discussing development plans for Darfur and a scheduled meeting between their leader, Minni Minnawi, and President Bush. But reports from Darfur give a different impression. In the large camps housing many of the 2.2 million people displaced by the civil war, violence has increased since the May 5 signing of the Darfur peace agreement.

CAIRO, Egypt -- Osama bin Laden denounced what he called a "Zionist crusaders' war on Islam" in an audiotape broadcast yesterday, pointing to the isolation of the Hamas-led Palestinian government, talk of a Western peacekeeping force in Sudan and the Muslim outrage over Danish cartoons mocking the Prophet Muhammad as new evidence of a clash of civilizations. His voice sounding strong and combative, bin Laden implied that killing American civilians was justified, beseeched Muslims to fight any Sudan peacekeeping force and called for the creators of the offensive cartoons to be turned over to al-Qaida for punishment.