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Yugoslav Troops to Take Full Control of Buffer Zone
Yugoslav forces Thursday entered the remaining part of a "buffer zone" separating Kosovo from the rest of Serbia to take full control of the area where ethnic Albanian extremists used as a security vacuum to stage an insurgence in southern Serbia and neighboring Macedonia.
The Yugoslav troops and Serbian special police forces began early morning to enter the northern tip of "Sector B", the final part of the five-kilometer-wide buffer zone, according to the Tanjug news agency.
Between 4,000 and 5,000 troops are expected to seize Sector B in a few days from the hands of ethnic Albanian extremists there, it said.
Sector B is the area which was the first to fall into rebel hands and Albanian rebels there are the best organized and best equipped.
The NATO decision made on May 14 to open up Sector B allowed the Yugoslav forces to use tanks, armored vehicles and artillery in their operation, which will help end the ethnic Albanian insurgence since February in Macedonia.
Since late November, a large number of ethnic Albanian extremists entered the buffer zone from Kosovo to attack police and civilians. From there, they entered Macedonia in February and launched fighting with Macedonian forces in an attempt to seize Macedonia's second largest town Tetovo, which is a heartland of ethnic Albanians living in Macedonia.
The international community feared that the insurgence in Macedonia might further spread and threaten security of the whole Balkan region.
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