A Yugoslav army soldier aims at a possible target near the Deva border station on the frontier between Yugoslavia and Albania Thursday. (Reuters)

By William Drozdiak
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, April 30, 1999; Page A1

BRUSSELS, April 29 – NATO bombs and missiles pummeled targets across Yugoslavia today in some of the heaviest airstrikes to date, wreaking devastation on President Slobodan Milosevic's hometown, a Belgrade military headquarters and Montenegro's main airfield.

The Pentagon said it will soon begin "area bombing," dropping unguided weapons from B-52 bombers in an imprecise technique that resulted in large civilian casualties in World War II and the Vietnam War. Defense Secretary William S. Cohen ordered 10 more B-52 bombers to join the five already deployed in the air assault on Yugoslavia.

"We intend to intensify this air campaign," Cohen said at a news conference.

In today's attacks, a stray missile from an F-16 fighter plane slammed into a suburb of Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria – a country that has backed NATO's air campaign and wants to join the alliance. The missile, which struck about 30 miles east of the Yugoslav border, damaged the roof of a house but caused no injuries.

The growing ferocity of NATO airstrikes also was felt in Montenegro, the pro-Western republic that, along with Serbia, forms the federation of Yugoslavia. It suffered its first civilian casualties, including the death of an elderly woman, when strikes near the airport damaged homes and property in a village. Until now, NATO has tried to avoid attacks that might destabilize Montenegro's democratic government, but the alliance said it hit the airport because Yugoslavia had regrouped its battered air force there. [Details, Page A31.]

Intense diplomatic activity continued in several European capitals, centered on Russia's search for a settlement formula that would satisfy NATO and Yugoslavia, but officials reported no breakthroughs. Moscow's Balkans envoy Viktor Chernomyrdin met top officials in Germany and Italy, and spoke by phone with Vice President Gore. He was to have talks in Belgrade Friday.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson arrived in Belgrade, on a mission to win freedom for three U.S. soldiers captured by Yugoslavia on March 31. Traveling with a delegation of American religious leaders, Jackson hoped to meet Milosevic and the three American soldiers.

About 5,000 ethnic Albanian refugees arrived in Macedonia, as the exodus continued from Serbia's southern province of Kosovo. Aid workers issued strong warnings that the influx was overwhelming Macedonia's crowded refugee camps and other facilities. "We are on the brink of a catastrophe," said Paula Ghedini, spokeswoman for the U.N. refugee agency.

The escalation on the 37th day of NATO's bombing campaign followed a decision by NATO leaders at last weekend's summit in Washington to delay any decision about sending ground troops to invade Yugoslavia and to intensify airstrikes to exert maximum pressure on Milosevic to comply with NATO conditions for a cease-fire.

Allied warplanes attacked several sites in Belgrade identified as military headquarters, bridges and petroleum facilities at Smederevo, and army barracks at Milosevic's hometown of Pozarevac, about 50 miles southeast of Belgrade. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

NATO military sources said the attack on Pozarevac was designed to send a chilling signal to the inner circle of the Yugoslav leadership, which includes several members of Milosevic's extended family. His son, Marko, has extensive business interests in the town, including a discotheque named for pop star Madonna.

"We are going to draw the noose around them until it starts to hurt," said a senior U.S. policymaker. "When people like Marko start to feel the pain of this air campaign, then Milosevic might wake up and come to his senses."

NATO planes conducted 30 airstrikes against the military airfield at Podgorica, Montenegro's capital. NATO commanders reported that all but one of the bombing raids made successful strikes on military aircraft, control towers, radar facilities, aircraft hangars and petroleum storage sites. NATO spokesman Jamie Shea said the presence of Yugoslav Super Galeb planes and other aircraft in Montenegro presented a direct threat to NATO forces assembled in nearby Albania.

Allied governments were still wrangling in Brussels over how to enforce a planned oil embargo against Yugoslavia, which gets much of its fuel by ship through the port of Bar in Montenegro. France has questioned whether a blockade would be tantamount to an act of war, and therefore require U.N. Security Council approval. The United States and some other allies insist the flow of oil to the Yugoslav army must be stopped.

The deployment of additional B-52s represents a significant increase in use of so-called "dumb bombs" and raises the risk of hitting civilian targets, Pentagon officials said. The B-52s can carry more than 50 Mark-82 bombs, each weighing 500 pounds, and can drop a string of bombs across a miles-long area.

Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon said NATO plans to use the B-52s to hit troop concentrations hiding in Yugoslavia's dense woods. "They are great in staging areas, airports, [and] dug-in artillery along the Macedonian and Albanian borders," Bacon said.

Asked about the likelihood of civilian deaths, Cohen said the allies are "concerned about collateral damage. . . . We do take it into account on each and every mission, and we'll do our best to make sure we minimize it."

Gen. Henry H. Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that NATO planners began updating plans for sending ground troops to Kosovo, and that all options are possible for U.S. participation in such a force. "I anticipate that it will probably take another week or two at least, before they have completed that," he said.

At the NATO summit, alliance leaders agreed on a two-track strategy to ratchet up pressure through the bombing campaign while pursuing a diplomatic offensive that encourages Russia's mediation. But as the warplanes escalate their bombing, the risk of widening the conflict becomes more serious.

The misguided missile that landed near Sofia provoked alarm in Bulgaria's ruling circles. It was the third time since NATO's bombing campaign began March 24 that allied bombs have landed on Bulgarian territory, and President Petar Stoyanov expressed grave concern that such accidents could soon lead to civilian casualties.

The incident occurred as Bulgaria's government sought permission from parliament for NATO to use a 70- to 90-mile-wide overflight corridor along its border with Yugoslavia in return for greater security guarantees from the alliance. The stray missile has inflamed opposition among Bulgarians sympathetic to the plight of fellow Slavs in Serbia, but Stoyanov said he was confident the government would win the vote in parliament next week.

Shea said NATO airstrikes that led to "unintended consequences" represented only a "tiny fraction" of more than 4,500 attacks carried out. He said NATO commanders were studying the Bulgarian case and expected to make improvements that would prevent similar incidents in the future.

In diplomatic contacts aimed at ending the conflict, Russian envoy Chernomyrdin reported "progress but no breakthrough" after meeting with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.

Chernomyrdin then spoke by phone with Gore. A White House official said the two talked mostly about the composition of the international security force to be deployed in Kosovo after a possible cease-fire – the main point of difference between NATO and Yugoslavia.

NATO says a peacekeeping force in Kosovo must be armed to help protect returning ethnic Albanian refugees, and the United States and some other powerful allies want NATO troops to be the core of the force. Yugoslavia says the peacekeeping unit can neither be armed nor include anyone from countries now involved in the NATO assaults.

In Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, Greek Foreign Minister George Papandreou, Canadian Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy and U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan held a brief news conference in which they expressed hope for progress but did not cite any. Axworthy said the foreign ministers of the G-7 industrialized nations and Russia will meet in Cologne, Germany, on June 8 to review the Kosovo situation.

In a legal bid to end the airstrikes, Yugoslavia asked the World Court at The Hague, Netherlands, to rule that NATO's bombing breaches international law. State Department spokesman James P. Rubin said the United States would regard any such suit "as an absurdity and an obvious effort to divert attention from the atrocities and other outrageous activities being perpetrated by the regime in Kosovo."

On Capitol Hill, misgivings over the president's approach to the Kosovo conflict continued to dominate deliberations. The House erupted in recriminations over a Wednesday vote to withhold support for the air campaign, while Senate leaders struggled to avert a showdown early next week over whether to expand or restrict the president's powers in dealing with Yugoslavia.

At issue was a bipartisan proposal from Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) and others to authorize "all necessary force," including ground troops, to win the war. But many Republicans oppose the proposal and, with the apparent blessing of Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.), support a measure similar to one approved by the House that would bar use of ground troops until Congress specifically approves their deployment.

Staff writers Ceci Connolly, Helen Dewar, Thomas W. Lippman and Dana Priest in Washington contributed to this report.