Although it will be some days before the full picture emerges, it is already clear that NATO - in another act of worrying incompetence - has killed a substantial number of civilians in Southern Kosovo. The latest reports suggest that over 100 civilians, most of them women and children, were killed and dozens seriously injured when NATO fighters attacked a farm compound in the village of Korisa yesterday. The victims are thought to include some of the 400 or 500 ethnic Albanians who had been hiding out in forests and had sought shelter in the farm buildings. The survivors speak of a farmyard littered with the charred remains of dozens of people.
The killings in Korisa are the latest in a catalogue of blunders by NATO since the air campaign began and they will raise further searching questions about the long-term credibility of the strategy. Last month a NATO attack on a refugee convoy in Kosovo killed 64 people and the disastrous bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade one week ago was another blunder by the alliance.
The latest tragedy will intensify the pressure on NATO to abandon its unilateral bombing campaign against Yugoslavia which, in the absence of a readiness to commit ground troops, seems unlikely to achieve its objective. The air campaign also continues to risk very heavy civilian casualties of the kind witnessed yesterday. At this stage, NATO's stock response to such attacks - that civilian casualties are a regrettable but inevitable by-product of war - is entirely unacceptable.
For all that, it remains the case that the war is politically and morally justified given the refusal of Slobodan Milosevic to accept the peace deal worked out at Rambouillet two months ago and the escalation of repression in Kosovo. The United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees, Mrs Mary Robinson, referred yesterday to the "vicious human rights violations" for which the Yugoslav government stands accused. But she also, tellingly, appeared to be critical of NATO's reliance on a broadly based, "very wide", air campaign. Citing Yugoslav figures which put civilian casualties at 1,200 dead and 5,000 injured she said that she had a responsibility as High Commissioner to express concern about the high number of deaths and injured.
For now, both sides in the conflict appear as entrenched as they were when the air campaign began seven weeks ago. But both face difficulties; NATO remains reluctant to commit ground troops but it seems unlikely to achieve its war objectives without escalating the war. For his part, Slobodan Milosevic is, apparently, coming to terms the heavy casualties among his troops in Kosovo and the longer-term damage that NATO can inflict on Yugoslavia.
All of this must make the search for a diplomatic solution endorsed by the UN still more urgent. The co-operation of Russia and China remains critical to any peace deal but both are reluctant to accept NATO involvement in any international force in Kosovo or an independent Kosovo. And the political crisis in Moscow is scarcely helping matters. For the moment, it appears that the war will continue with heavy casualties of the type seen yesterday inevitable - unless the current diplomatic deadlock is broken.