Northern Mitrovica starts just the other side of the last British Warrior armoured vehicle. A crouching English private from the Royal Green Jackets, assault-rifle levelled, gives the obligatory warning.
"There's a sniper threat," he says, breath misting through the khaki Arab head-dress, or shemag, he wears wrapped around his nose and mouth. "Beyond this point we can't come and pick you up if you get hit."
Once through the barbed-wire on the north end of the bridge over the River Ibar, which separates north and south of this bitterly-divided city, you're in Serb territory. This part of the scruffy city, with its communist-era apartment blocks, may be part of Kosovo, with all of NATO and the UN's over-stretched claims to multi-ethnicity, but this is very much mono-ethnic country.
Hard to the left-hand side is the Dolce Vita cafe, a hangout for the Serb paramilitary teams suspected of being the real security in this part of town. The place was closed three days ago, after French NATO troops surrounded it with armoured vehicles and sent in 50 soldiers on an arms raid.
But the paramilitaries and their accomplices are still very much in evidence. Just walk up the central shopping street for 300 metres. Go past the UN police vehicle torched during last week's ethnic cleansing of Albanians, past the brightly-painted caravans selling hamburgers, and the drapers' shops with their dusty, faded mannequins decked out in flared suits. And there they are, just past the NATO soldiers.
Three body-armoured French infantrymen lounge against a VAB armoured-car at the crossroads. The camouflaged vehicle has the name "Luxembourg 1684" stencilled on its hulking flank, commemorating a former battle honour. This crossroads, like all main arteries in northern Mitrovica, is code-named after a part of Paris. This junction is "Passy".
Straight on from here, past "Rue des Rosiers", and there's a khaki Yugoslav army jeep swerveparked into the kerb. Five Serb men are inside, identically dressed in black leather jackets, black roll-necks, black jeans, and radio handsets.
These are the local men organised by Oliver Ivanovic, the self-=styled mayor of northern Mitrovica. These are the bridgekeepers, who Bajram Rexhepi, the Albanian mayor of southern Mitrovica, claims led the recent ethnic rampage against Albanians. Eight Albanians were killed and some 1,200 forced to flee their properties in the north.
Less than 1,500 Albanians still remain in the north, according to the UN refugee agency, UNHCR.
"Oliver Ivanovic keeps us in touch," says Ljumir Marich (23), a refugee from the Krajina region of Croatia, who fled first to Pristina in 1995 and then to Mitrovica last September after NATO entered Kosovo. "This is a small town and we need to know what is going on. There could be another Albanian attack at any time."
Ljumir and his 23-year-old Krajina Serb girlfriend, Vanja Majstorevic, are both engineering students. Dressed in black wool and grey velvet, suede shoes brushed, they're off for a walk in the cold, late afternoon light.
They've reason to be nervous. On Sunday, French troops fought a five-hour running gun-battle through the streets of northern Mitrovica against Albanian snipers, former Kosovo Liberation Army rebels who had infiltrated the north, barricaded themselves into an apartment, mined the stairs and loaded their Kalashnikovs. Two French soldiers were wounded.
Serb gunmen took advantage of the confusion to open fire on British soldiers on the south of the river. British snipers returned fire.
But Vanja and Ljumir will only tell you about the Albanian attack. Serbs, they say, were not involved. Only Albanians. They used to live in Pristina, before they fled to the enclave of northern Mitrovica, escaping Albanian reprisals for the Serb ethnic cleansing of Kosovo. They know Albanians.
"Tell us," they ask, "in Pristina are children still being killed for their body-parts?"
Up at the United Nations Police HQ, all the officers have orders not to talk to the press. These are men who went out on a limb two weeks ago, rescuing Albanians from a rampaging Serb mob, while French NATO soldiers, they claim, stood by and did nothing. Their lips are now sealed from above.
One of the recently-destroyed Albanian properties stands around the corner, on the edge of the Mahala quarter, now guarded by French troops busily arresting Albanians suspected of being snipers. They've pulled in over 50 so far. And only one Serb.
"I'm sick of being accused of having a pro-Serb agenda," says French General Pierre de Saqui de Sannes wearily. "I'm committed to a multi-ethnic Mitrovica."
Not so, say his critics. Oliver Ivanovic's men are excused the 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew, while Albanians in the south of Mitrovica stay indoors. French troops will open fire to protect their own lives, but not those of Albanians.
"It's just the beginning of the end of any hope for a multi-ethnic Kosovo," says a senior NATO official. "It appears that deals are being done to keep the north of this city purely Serb, just for the sake of keeping the peace. Milosevic is triumphing again."