Albanian separatists operating in southern Serbia attacked a Serb police patrol with mortar shells on Sunday, colonel Novica Zdravkovic, the local police chief, told AFP on Monday.
He said the attack happened north west of Bujanovac when separatists "fired four mortar shells at a police patrol on the Vrtogos-Breznica-Djordjevac road, but no-one was hurt".
The rebels were members of the Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac liberation Army (UCPMB), operating in the three towns where the population is predominantly ethnic Albanian.
"Police did not return fire," colonel Zdravkovic said.
He also denied allegations by the UCPMB that Serbian police violated the cease-fire in force inside the buffer zone along the administrative border between southern Serbia and Kosovo.
"Even during the cease-fire, they attacked using guns fitted with silencers," UCPMB spokesman Muhamet Xhemaili alleged Sunday.
An indefinite cease-fire was agreed between Belgrade and the UCPMB last Monday after three Serbian policemen were killed in fighting which erupted in the buffer zone nearly two weeks ago.
But colonel Zdravkovic said: "We have in no way violated the military technical agreement (signed between Belgrade and NATO in June 1999). The police are armed only with the weapons authorized by the agreement but have refrained from any action against the terrorists.
"There has been no engagement with the terrorists apart from the incident on Sunday (when the UCPMB fired mortars on police)."
The five kilometer (three mile) wide buffer zone was set up in June 1999 under the agreement between Belgrade and NATO, the Yugoslav army is not allowed to patrol the zone and Serbian police are not permitted to use weapons above a 12mm caliber in the zone.
The UCPMB is calling for the towns of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac, where 70,000 ethnic Albanians live, to be attached to neighboring Kosovo -- BELGRADE (AFP)
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