Ethnic Albanian refugees flee fighting in the Drenica region of Kosovo, Yugoslavia, on Sunday. (Associated Press)

By R. Jeffrey Smith and Peter Finn
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, March 22, 1999; Page A1

SRBICA, Yugoslavia, March 21 – Yugoslav special forces troops searching door-to-door over the weekend for supporters of ethnic Albanian separatists detained and executed 10 men here on Saturday, including a father and his four sons, witnesses said.

The alleged executions – supported by physical evidence at two locations – were among many visible signs today of the toll of a two-day government offensive in central Kosovo. Scores of homes billowed black and gray smoke in nearly a dozen villages in the region as the fighting swelled the number of new refugees to an estimated 44,000.

The primary goal of Army and Interior Ministry troops, including special forces units in white uniforms with black masks, apparently is to push the Kosovo Liberation Army and its supporters out of the Drenica region. But it remains unclear whether the action was a prelude to heavier fighting throughout Kosovo or a contained action against the KLA's heartland territory.

NATO has threatened immediate airstrikes to punish atrocities or to compel the Yugoslav government to accept a Western-drafted peace accord that provides for the swift deployment of up to 28,000 NATO troops to enforce a cease-fire in Kosovo. But so far Belgrade has not given any hint that it might shift its position or refrain from targetting civilians.

According to the accounts of three witnesses in Srbica, a city of 20,000 residents, special forces units on Saturday detained Ali Gashi, his four sons and three neighbors and marched the men, their hands clasped behind their heads, at gunpoint up a hill overlooking the city and then into a gully. After a 20-minute discussion among the troops, witnesses said, the men were executed.

The witnesses said a unit of Interior Ministry troops removed the bodies with surgical gloves. Today, pools of blood and bits of skull and brain matter were still splashed across mud and leaves at the site. A surgical glove lay discarded near the scene.

Other witnesses recounted the execution on Saturday of two other men – Muhamed Fazlia, 29, and his cousin, Musli Fazlia, 23, – in a nearby farmyard after special forces found them hiding in a house where relatives had sheltered them. The men and their families had fled shelling of their home village to the east of Srbica a week ago. According to three witnesses, the men were shot in their heads as they stood with their arms raised.

Villagers from across the region gave accounts of harassment and beatings that indicate that the Belgrade regime's rhetoric about standing up to NATO has percolated to the lowest ranks of the military. A 16-year-old boy from the destroyed village of Lausa and an 18-year-old from Srbica who fled to Mitrovica today said they were arrested and beaten by troops at the Srbica police station. They said the troops taunted them, asking, "Where is NATO for you now? Where are your [foreign] verifiers?"

The boys, among an estimated 200 men arrested in Srbica, said the troops cursed President Clinton. A KLA guerrilla officer, encountered on a highway near Srbica, said that some civilians who fled the area reported that they were told to "leave for Albania and look for Americans to protect you." A 13-year-old girl in Srbica watched as her brother and mother were beaten by soldiers who promised to "massacre you" and "burn you all."

Government forces appeared to be taking casualties. One soldier said 50 soldiers had been killed in heavy fighting. Serb officials said that four Serbian policemen were shot dead in an ambush tonight in Pristina, the capital of the province.

Seven villages around Srbica were shelled today and six villages that were shelled yesterday were still afire. Artillery fire echoed in the hills and smoke climbed above the emptied village of Donji Prekaz where shattered houses smoldered, their front doors ajar. The village of Polijance, at the edge of Srbica, was in flames, and tanks sat on a overlooking crest. When reporters drove toward the village, a warning shot rang out, halting them.

Throughout the day, tanker trucks shuttled to and from areas of heavy fighting, refueling tanks and other armored vehicles. Interior Ministry jeeps and large cargo vans were seen leaving the area where troops had conducted house to house searches.

The region has been the scene of previous ferocious fighting. Almost exactly a year ago, a military assault on the family compound of a KLA leader in Donji Prekaz helped radicalize Kosovo's ethnic Albanian population and sharply intensified the conflict. Villages in the region were burned last summer and fall before the government agreed in an October deal with NATO to withdraw its army units from villages, to reduce its Interior Ministry troops' presence and to halt the use of heavy weapons in the countryside.

The current assault differs from previous fighting in one respect: Army units, which previously kept clear of some of the worst fighting in Kosovo, are now paired with Interior Ministry troops. The army's engagement appears to reflect a new and more compliant Army leadership installed by Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic at the end of last year.

Residents of Srbica said the army began searching houses here Saturday morning. According to witnesses, one reason eight of the men who were later shot may have been targeted was because KLA calender-posters were found in their homes. Others whose homes were searched said troops repeatedly demanded to know if they had met senior KLA officials. Police accused men in black jeans with pockets on the thighs of wearing the combat trousers favored by the KLA.

About 9:30 a.m., witnesses said, the eight men who were later shot were rounded up and forced to march with their hands over their heads to a wooded area near the local hospital. Witnesses identified the men as Gashi, 54; his four sons, including 18-year-old twins; Ramiz Geci, 30; Januz Kaleci, 60, and his son. They said the men were directed to a gully. Then, about 20 minutes later, five Serbian soldiers stood on a slight incline above the gulley and shot the men.

Shortly after, witnesses said, more Interior Ministry troops arrived and removed weapons from the back of a Jeep as well as a video camera. A prosecutor later arrived and the bodies were removed by a team wearing surgical gloves, the witnesses said.

As one witness walked through the blood-stained grass today, he began shaking as his eyes filled with tears, and he turned away. Another witness wept as she said, "I can never forget what I saw." A third witness shook his head and said, "I knew all of them."

In a second alleged execution, which occurred about 250 yards away, troops in Yugoslav special forces' white uniforms and black masks burst through the gate of a family compound of three houses about 10 a.m. Saturday, three witnesses said. They kicked in one house's front door, which shows the marks of their boots. Two soldiers ransacked the house and stole foreign currency, the witnesses said.

In another house in the compound, a television set's screen had been smashed and debris was scattered. After the ransacking, two masked soldiers ordered one woman outside. "Where are the men?" they asked the woman, witnesses said. "Where are the terrorists?" They held a gun to her head and shot in the air.

The woman denied there were men in the compound, witnesses said. But, in fact, five families, as well as the owners, were staying in the three houses. All five families had fled shelling outside Srbica. When the Serbs found two men, the Fazlia cousins, they forced them and an older male cousin into the yard with their hands above their heads.

They returned to the woman and struck her for lying to them, witnesses said. At close range and without warning, they then shot the Fazlia cousins, said three witnesses who saw the shooting. The soldiers spared the older cousin who is in his 50s. Police forces removed the bodies within 10 minutes, the witnesses said.