A Valley Full Of Dangers

By Andrew Purvis With Reporting By Dejan Anastasijevic/Belgrade, James L. Graff/Brussels And Massimo Calabresi/Washington

Part of the world's great reluctance to fight in the Balkans comes from the region's unforgiving geography. The area once known as Yugoslavia is a jumble of steep hills, dusty plateaus and impenetrable valleys--a terrible place to fight a war but a wonderful place for guerrilla warfare.

Last week American patrols got a glimpse of just the kind of Balkans war politicians and generals fear most. But the enemy wasn't Serbs, rather a group of renegade Albanians who dream of a "greater Albania" and are intent on attacking the Serbs and Macedonians, who stand in their way. From Washington to Athens, officials denounced "Albanian extremism" as the latest, most serious threat to peace in the Balkans. But will American and European troops fight against the guerrillas? No Western forces are eager to be drawn into a fight with the guerrillas on their own turf. Instead, last week NATO enlisted the aid of its former archenemy, the Yugoslav army, to tamp down guerrilla activity. Two years ago, it was this army that stormed into Kosovo. "NATO is beginning to trust us," mused a Serbian official.

Since the early 1990s, Western officials have feared a spillover of violence into Macedonia, the only Yugoslav republic to have won independence without bloodshed--thus far. The republic's 30% Albanian, 60% Macedonian-Slav mix is as volatile as any other in the former Yugoslavia, but a progressive government and Western aid have kept things stable. In recent weeks, however, a couple of hundred former members of the Kosovo Liberation Army attacked Macedonian army and police positions while another group assailed Serbian security forces in the nearby Presevo Valley--each in an apparent attempt to carve out additional territory for some future independent Kosovo.

NATO officials concede that the problem is partly of their own making. A three-mile-wide buffer zone along the Kosovo border, created by NATO to keep Serbian forces at bay, has become the perfect working environment for Albanian rebels. NATO's new plan allows for lightly armed Serbian troops to patrol a section of the zone near Macedonia in order to disrupt rebel incursions. Meanwhile, in Kosovo, U.S. troops have stepped up their patrols.

The partial elimination of the buffer zone carries risks. Serbian troops entering the area may include the same units, albeit under a different command, that operated in Kosovo. But Belgrade says it has imposed new rules for treatment of civilians, and NATO stresses that the effort is only a test. "If things go wrong," says a NATO official, "we're still in control." For now.

--By Andrew Purvis. With reporting by Dejan Anastasijevic/Belgrade, James L. Graff/Brussels and Massimo Calabresi/Washington