Milosevic pulls two nasty surprises for NATO from his hat

Just when NATO thought it was safe to go on with the bombing. . .the Yugoslav President, Mr Slobodan Milosevic, yesterday pulled two very nasty surprises from his hat.

Serb television treated breakfast-time viewers to the sight of the three US soldiers captured on a patrol on the Kosovo-Macedonia border. Sgt Andrew Ramirez, Sgt James Stone and Cpl Steven Gonzales stood grim-faced in front of wood-panelled cupboards, their stars-and-stripes shoulder patches clearly visible on their green camouflage uniforms.

Belgrade television reported last night that the three will be tried before a special court, but the Yugoslav Information Minister promised they would be freed if NATO stopped its bombing.

The capture of the three men might have been insignificant in military terms, but it was a devastating blow in the propaganda war, five days after the Serbs shot down a US Stealth bomber.

Yugoslav officers continue to marvel at the prowess with which US forces spirited the F-117A pilot out of northern Serbia, but to lose three foot soldiers in Macedonia seemed a gross blunder.

Serb television divulged little about the soldiers, saying only that they were based in Germany and resisted capture - perhaps an explanation for the bruise marks on one of their faces. The Yugoslav Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Vuk Draskovic, said he wanted to send best wishes to the soldiers' families, and assured them they need not worry.

But the British Foreign Secretary, Mr Robin Cook, claimed Yugoslavia had violated international law by seizing troops whom he said were assigned to a UN mission, and by "using them for propaganda purposes".

President Milosevic's other coup was his appropriation of Mr Ibrahim Rugova, the French-educated Albanian linguist and leader of the Democratic League of Kosovo who was elected "president" of the Serb province in 1992. Mr Rugova, a believer in non-violent civil disobedience rather than armed rebellion, was one of four Albanians who signed the NATO-backed Rambouillet peace accord in Paris on March 18th. On Sunday, NATO claimed that his Pristina home had been burned down and that Mr Rugova was in hiding.

But there was Mr Rugova on television last night signing an agreement with Mr Milosevic, saying that the conflict must be solved by "political process" and that the armed conflict must stop. Serb police had offered to guarantee his safety, he said earlier, and he had accepted. So how free a moral agent is Mr Rugova? True, his smile looked a little forced when he met with President Milosevic in Belgrade's Beli Dvor palace. Could he be trying to retrieve the leadership he had lost to the Kosovo Liberation Army? While NATO claimed Mr Rugova had been taken hostage, officials in Belgrade described him as a reasonable Albanian and saw hope for a peaceful solution in his accord with their president.

The soldiers' capture and Mr Rugova's reappearance as Mr Milosevic's "guest" may have marked small victories for the Serbs, but they suffered their own psychological setback yesterday morning, when missiles destroyed what NATO described as a "strategic bridge" in the northern town of Novi Sad. It was part of the alliance's announced strategy of "widening the campaign".

The destruction of the bridge over the Danube marked a shift from purely military targets to civilian infrastructure. Because water pipes ran under it, parts of Novi Sad are now deprived of water. And the Novi Sad bridge's proximity to the 18th century Petrovaradin Fortress, a national symbol designed by the French architect Vauban, strengthened the Serbs' conviction that they are defending their history in fighting NATO.

For the first time since the war started, Belgrade lived through a day without air raid sirens, and the city became almost animated. But rumours spread that NATO would bomb the capital's bridges next - and perhaps government buildings.