and other NATO authorities to disclose much about targets being hit or damage being done. ' Milosevic has changed the rules, and maybe it's time for NATO to change some rules of its own.'Īssessment of NATO's bombardment has been complicated by the reluctance of U.S. These are people without a lot of scruples who are out of control,' said a senior alliance diplomat. 'We have all been taken aback by the brutality of the Serb operations. After a long meeting of ambassadors from NATO's 19 governments at NATO headquarters in Brussels yesterday, they decided to quickly broaden the campaign. Clark, NATO's top military commander, a mandate to widen the attack to command and control centers and military infrastructure across Yugoslavia, including downtown Belgrade. Hampered by bad weather that has forced the cancellation of some bombing runs, and constrained at first from going after Serb troops and tanks in the field until Yugoslav air defenses were sufficiently neutralized, NATO authorities also appear to have underestimated the ferocity of the Serb repression.įrustration with the course of the conflict so far has provoked tensions between the United States and some European allies over whether to give Gen. 'I think right now, it is difficult to say that we have prevented one act of brutality at this stage,' Defense Department spokesman Kenneth Bacon told reporters. While Pentagon authorities insist that the bombing has wreaked significant damage on the Yugoslav military and its equipment, they said yesterday that it has proved unable to block a brutal campaign by the Yugoslav army and police of executions and forced exile of ethnic Albanians. She said Serb forces had fired on her group of refugees as they fled Kosovo.Īfter a week of airstrikes against Yugoslavia, Clinton administration officials acknowledged yesterday that NATO's military offensive has failed to meet its declared goal of halting violence against Albanian rebels and their supporters in the Serbian province of Kosovo. : Allied Action Fails to Stop Serb BrutalityĪllied Action Fails to Stop Serb BrutalityĪn unidentified ethnic Albanian refugee girl, suffering from a gunshot wound to the head, is carried into Albania from Kosovo at the Morini border Wednesday by an Albanian official.

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