U.S. Embassy in Belgrade Overrun

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Emotions Run High as Kosovo Declares Independence

Poor and mostly Muslim but feverishly pro-Western, Kosovo declared independence from Serbia on Sunday, ending a long chapter in the bloody breakup of Yugoslavia. U.S. President George Bush hailed the newly independent Kosovo and officially recognized it as a state and a "close friend" on Monday.

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Despite its size, the main rally Thursday, a mixture of speeches and patriotic songs, was somewhat listless, observers said.

Sporadic violence in the predominantly Serb region of northern Kosovo, including attacks in recent days on U.N. border posts, have raised fears that Belgrade might attempt to partition the new state.

But such a move, even if it could be achieved in the face of NATO's presence on the ground, would essentially abandon nearly half of the Serbs who live deeper in the former province and are surrounded by ethnic Albanian communities.

Moreover, it would effectively end Belgrade's claim on all of Kosovo, something Serbia does not appear willing to countenance.

International officials fear that Serbia, and Serbs living in northern Kosovo, will attempt to draw ethnic Albanians into conflict to undermine their claims that they intend to build a multiethnic democratic state.

Kostunica told the crowd Thursday that Serbia has the support of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Russia has been Serbia's most vocal ally in opposing Kosovo's declaration of independence, which has also been recognized by leading European countries such as Britain, France and Germany.

"The Russians are behind this because they have encouraged the worst and most extremist elements in Serbia for the last year," former U.S. diplomat Richard Holbrooke, who negotiated with Milosevic in the run-up to NATO's bombing campaign, said on CNN.

Despite skirmishes around the U.S. Embassy on Sunday, riot police were largely invisible Thursday when demonstrators, their faces covered, rammed their way into the facility.

One man ripped down the U.S. flag while others waved the Serbian flag from a chancery balcony. Smoke began to billow from the building as protesters tossed furniture and papers -- none of them sensitive, U.S. officials said -- out of broken windows. The crowd chanted, "Serbia, Serbia."

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack called on the Serbian government to "devote the assets to deal with this situation," adding that Serbia has a responsibility "to ensure that that facility is adequately protected."

A greater crisis had been avoided, McCormack said, because the embassy closed at noon to ensure that hundreds of employees and visitors would not be there.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice directed Undersecretary R. Nicholas Burns to call the Serbian prime minister and foreign minister to say the situation was "intolerable," McCormack said.

Kostunica assured Burns that there would not be a repeat of the attack.

Riot police did not begin to disperse the crowd until 30 minutes after the embassy had been breached by demonstrators. The Reuters news agency said 97 people were injured in the street clashes, including 32 police officers and a Dutch reporter.

Zoran Zivkovic, a former Serbian prime minister, told the Bloomberg news agency that local police guarding the U.S. Embassy "acted as if someone told them to stay idle and tolerate looting and burning."

Wright reported from Washington.