Ethnic Albanian guerrillas pointed to smoke rising from a village in central Kosovo and said Serbia's claim to have ended its military offensive was a fraud.
"They are still setting fire to our homes," said an angry gunman from a hilltop controlled by the separatist Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) overlooking the burning village of Makamal in the Drenica region. The village lies close to a highway controlled by heavily armed Serb police.
Last month plumes of smoke from torched Albanian homes frequently dotted the horizon in Kosovo in what some Western observers called a "scorched earth" campaign against the province's rebellious Albanian majority.
As the threat of NATO air strikes grew, Belgrade claimed its offensive over and the skies mostly cleared.
Three days ago the KLA declared it too would exercise "selfrestraint" and shoot only if attacked.
"We haven't made a single bang since the order for restraint," said the guerrilla, dressed in camouflage fatigues adorned with the eagle insignia of the KLA. "But the Serbs have not stopped."
Serb police at a post visited by journalists on Saturday night said they were still sniped at by the KLA, but added that shooting had quietened in recent days.
On Sunday, automatic gunfire chattered across one Drenica hillside. It was impossible to tell who was firing, but a KLA guerrilla standing nearby seemed unconcerned.
NATO's latest threats to bomb Serbia, backed by actual military preparations, seem to have raised guerrillas' spirits.
KLA cars conspicuously cruise roads in Drenica where just two weeks ago they had vanished as Serb forces bombarded the area and were accused of massacring women, children and elderly near the hamlet of Gornje Obrinje.
The local commander, known as "Number 10" brazenly patrols in an expensive vehicle bearing the personalised number plate "UCK 010" - using the Albanian initials for the KLA.
Members of the Delija clan, still mourning 24 relatives they say were killed by the Serbs around Gornje Obrinje in late September, have begun repairing a family home in the guerrilla-held zone which was shattered by Serb tanks. "We are still scared but we have to live somewhere," said one middle-aged man of the clan.
"If foreigners don't come and help us we will all be massacred in the end," said Habibe Delija (60) sitting nearby.
Journalists watched helplessly as a refugee mother of four died in her shack of branches and plastic sheeting near the village of Trdevac. A local doctor said Rahime Brahimi (34) had suffered heart failure after months of living in the open.
Refugee Nifa Mehmetaj nursed her friend Sevdie Asllanaj, a 45year-old mother of five, as she shivered with a high fever.
"We have lived outdoors for five months," said Mehmetaj.
"When the Serbs came to our village, Cerovik, they stole rings from our fingers. For five days we had nothing to eat. We are all sick." The doctor said Asllanaj's illness was the result of stress and poor diet.