A fresh humanitarian crisis broke out yesterday in Kosovo with Serb forces cutting off refugees from aid supplies in heavy fighting as the West's star envoy, Mr Richard Holbrooke, arrived for talks in the Yugoslav capital, Belgrade.
Meanwhile reports from US officials on Monday that the Kosovo Liberation Army was ready to sign the Rambouillet peace agreement turned out to be premature. A KLA spokesman, Mr Pleurat Sejdiu, said that some details of the plan, including a demand for rebels to disarm, must still be discussed.
Mr Holbrooke, the US diplomat who brokered the peace deal that ended the Bosnian war three years ago, said on the eve of today's talks that a showdown between Yugoslavs and the West may be close. "We are very concerned we might be on a collision course here between Yugoslavia and the Western authorities including NATO," he said.
President Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia continues to refuse to heed US demands that he either sign a peace plan for Kosovo and allow NATO peacekeepers to implement it, or face air strikes.
But in tune with the hawkish mood of their President, Yugoslav forces yesterday unleashed two offensives, one in the north, one in the south, against positions of the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army.
In the north, KLA commanders said Serb tanks attacked at the junction between two of their command zones near the town of Vucitrn, penetrating their defences.
The United Nations says hundreds of refugees fled five villages in the path of the tanks, bringing to 11,000 the number of villagers who have fled the area in the past two weeks.
But international anxieties are focused on the south, where Serb forces destroyed the village of Evaj and badly damaged another, Gajraj, sending their inhabitants fleeing into the hills.
Of most concern is the arrest of more than 400 refugees, with the women and children being separated from their menfolk, who have been taken away to a police station, with no explanation given.
The spokeswoman for the international monitors of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, Ms Beatrice Lacoste, said officials were worried about the fate of the men.
"These men have been separated from woman and children. It is a matter of concern for us," she said. "The men have been taken in trucks to the police station in trucks. They [the OSCE monitors] have lost contact with them."
She said hundreds more refugees in hills around Kacanik, close to the Macedonian border, have been cut off from aid deliveries by the Serbs. "The UN has no access. These people are just stuck in the hills. There was firing all day."
AFP adds: Serbian police yesterday issued arrest warrants for eight members of the KLA, including three peace negotiators, casting doubt on the resumption of peace talks in France next week.
The three negotiators are Mr Hashim Thaci, who headed the ethnic Albanian delegation in France and was yesterday nominated to form a "provisional government" for Kosovo, as well as Mr Jakup Krasniqi and Mr Ram Buja, members of the KLA "political leadership."