Assault on the Serbs: Phase two will hit the death squads

The 44th Parallel

THE WESTERN allies yesterday set up an Iraqi-style "exclusion zone" around the war-ravaged province of Kosovo, threatening to eliminate any Yugoslav army tanks and weaponry that are found within it.

The zone covers all Yugoslav territory south of the 44th parallel, about 60 miles south of the capital, Belgrade.

The announcement of the "red line" running east-west across Serbia is another sign that the alliance's military action, launched five days ago, is rapidly escalating. It reflects fears that the Serbs may be bent on conducting a "scorched earth" policy in Kosovo which requires drastic intervention if they are to be stopped.

The job of policing the "red line" in Serbia is expected to fall on Nato's low-flying A-10 Thunderbolt or "Warthog" tank-busting jets.

These planes will hit any Yugoslav army and police columns that they see moving inside the zone. The planes are armed with 30mm Gatling guns that fire bullets the size of soft-drink cans.

Asked if the so-called "Phase Two" of the campaign against the Yugoslavs that was announced at the weekend had begun, Nato's British military spokesman, Air Commodore David Wilby, said: "We have started."

The Yugoslav troops and Interior Ministry Special Police who are sweeping across Kosovo at the moment are resisted only by lightly armed Kosovo Albanian guerrillas. They will now face a far more formidable foe.

British Tornado and Harrier ground-attack aircraft were ordered into the area yesterday to help carry out the new wave of attacks.

Announcing the move, the Defence Secretary, George Robertson, said: "We are going to hit them hard... we are going to hit heavily at his ability to wage his murderous campaign," he added, referring to the Yugoslav president, Slobodan Milosevic.

The Nato spokesman Jamie Shea said the alliance pilots in the next few days would "start cracking down on those tanks". It is "a race against time to save as many lives as possible", he said.

The decision to locate the red line well north of Kosovo's border with Serbia proper reflects Nato's conviction that the war in Kosovo is being waged with the help of tanks and troops based in Serbia, which move in and out of the province.

The decision to set up a red line evokes comparisons with the Gulf war with Iraq, when the Western allies set up "exclusion zones" in the north and southof the country to protect Kurds and Shia Muslims from retribution at the hands of the Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein.

In the 1992-5 Bosnian war, the United Nations imposed a "no-fly" zone over the country, forbidding any of the three combatants from air attacks. However, until the West intervened against the Bosnian Serbs in July 1995, they did not attempt to stop the combatants moving round on the ground