Tension rises in N Kosovo with grenades

PRISTINA - Agence France-Presse

A border crossing between Serbia and Kosovo is set ablaze in this photo. AFP photo

Unknown attackers threw two grenades at NATO barracks at the tense border between Kosovo and Serbia early yesterday but there were no casualties, NATO troops said.

“At 4.00 am this morning (0200 GMT Tuesday) two hand grenades were thrown at the KFOR Compound ... at the Brnjak crossing point,” in northern Kosovo, the NATO-led KFOR mission said in a press release.

“One exploded, the other remained unexploded in the middle of the road, blocking traffic. One KFOR soldier has received slight hearing loss, no significant material damage has been reported,” it added.

KFOR peacekeepers have shut the crossing “until further notice” and called in experts to remove the unexploded grenade. Tension in northern Kosovo, almost exclusively populated by Serbs who do not recognize the government in Pristina, has flared again since KFOR moved in to remove Serb-erected roadblocks earlier this month. KFOR forces have been maintaining the security at the border between Kosovo and Serbia and in ethnically mixed areas around the flashpoint city of Kosovska Mitrovica and small ethnic Albanian pockets in the Serb-majority north.