Kosovo guerrillas say they have gone on the offensive in Kosovo, capturing two villages and several Serb soldiers in attacks made from bases on the other side of the border with Albania.
The claim comes amid a sixth day of cross-border fighting, with Serbia again shelling targets inside Albania near the village of Tropoje, and Albania warning that its forces may soon join the war.
The deputy director of the political wing of the Kosovo Liberation Army, Mr Jaser Salihu, said the KLA's "new army", forming on Albania's frontier, had begun pushing into the province, hoping to link up with units trapped inside. "We have taken a post-block [fortified position] of the military," Mr Salihu said at KLA headquarters in Geneva. "We have Serb prisoners. They are alive. We are going to show them on television."
These gains are relatively small. Two villages, Batusa and Kosare, are only a few miles inside Kosovo. But the rebels are waiting to see the reaction of the Serbs, with commanders hoping that air strikes, or the fear of those strikes, will prevent Serbia's armour from concentrating for a counterattack.
KLA commanders in both Albania and elsewhere in Europe are in buoyant mood. Two weeks ago they appeared to be on their knees. Their much vaunted special units in Kosovo were unable to prevent the routing of the civilian population in a Serbian bout of "ethnic cleansing."
Yet they have regrouped. Support bases on the Albanian border have been enlarged to accommodate a new army, formed from refugees and volunteers from emigre populations in Europe and the US. These camps now echo to the shouts and explosions of recruits in training.
They lack heavy weapons, and their training has not impressed Western experts, but KLA leaders think this may not matter. Nevertheless, they think Serb forces, bombed and starved of fuel, are in a worse predicament, with the guerrillas expecting to begin sending more and more units into battle at different points along the border.
Two days ago, the KLA claims, NATO bombed Serb tanks and destroyed a bridge after local commanders near the town of Pec used a satellite phone to alert NATO to the presence of a Serb battle group. NATO military observers in Kosovo say that as Serb forces weaken, the guerrillas will exploit gaps in the line to launch pinprick attacks from across Albania's frontier.
Yesterday saw the population of the Albanian town of Vlahen evacuated after monitors from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe counted more than 40 shells landing. An OSCE official based at nearby Bajram Curri, Mr Leo Dobbs, said the Serbs were trying to escalate the conflict and bring Albania into it.
Albania's modest army has already massed its limited artillery on the border, and one senior officer in Kukes said his troops would happily give support fire for the KLA. "We just wait to be given the order," he said.
At least two Albanian civilians have been killed and 12 wounded in the frontier battles which began on Friday.
On the one hand, NATO would be happy to see the KLA, in conjunction with its own air power, retake Kosovo, sparing NATO the need to use ground troops.
On the other hand, NATO officials fear the KLA, having gained control of the province, would be unwilling to give it up, shutting out not just the Serbs but other factions of the ethnic Albanian leadership.
One of NATO's war aims is to prevent the spreading of the Kosovo war into neighbouring states.
Mr Salihu said the KLA was desperate to bring supplies to units cut off farther inside Kosovo, where NATO says thousands of hungry civilians and rebel soldiers are trapped.
He is hoping NATO will change its mind after apparently ruling out air drops of food as too dangerous for the transport planes. "I hope they will throw aid from the planes, because there are so many people down there, they have nothing to eat," he said.