Cook says alliance is ready to go in fighting Alliance prepares full-scale invasion

BRITAIN AND the US are now ready to drive the remnants of Serb forces from Kosovo if necessary, to end a war which today drags into its third month with no sign that attrition by air strikes is hastening a Yugoslav withdrawal, or that a quick diplomatic solution is at hand.

Barely 24 hours after his return from Washington, the Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, said Nato strategists were drawing plans for troops to be deployed in both a permissive and a "non-permissive" environment, planners' jargon for a Kosovo in which enemy pockets remained after the back of Serbian resistance had been broken.

Mr Cook said on BBC television that the 40,000 to 50,000-strong force Nato is expected to approve this week to make Kosovo secure for the return of the refugees would be "more than just a peacekeeping force," and "a very solid organisation capable of making sure [President] Milosevic could not threaten Kosovo again".

The Foreign Secretary's forthright language, coming after a week filled by talk of a rift between London and Washington on the use of ground troops, underlined how a combination of advice from top commanders and pressure from Britain appears to have swung President Bill Clinton to a clear-cut embrace of the ground option, if required.

Mr Clinton said as much in The New York Times yesterday, writing that while he was sticking with the current air war strategy, he was not ruling out "other military options".

That was a notch up from his statement last week that "no option" was ruled out, a formulation which marked the abandonment of his earlier refusal to send in ground troops in a combat role.

The air strikes, the President maintained, were inexorably grinding down Serb forces. Nato bombing had "destroyed or damaged one third of Serbia's armoured vehicles in Kosovo, half its artillery and most of its ability to produce ammunition". Instead of disunity among the allies, "there is disaffection in Belgrade," he declared, citing reports of desertion, draft- avoidance and civil protest against the policies of the regime. A Pentagon spokesman claimed Nato had picked up the first public calls for Mr Milosevic to resign.

The confident, belligerent language in London and Washington came as Nato bombs and missiles struck at Yugoslavia's electricity network for a second day running, blacking out large regions of Belgrade and the rest of the country. In addition, a hit on a water supply plant northwest of the capital left 10,000 people without water.

The go-ahead for assembling a ground force came after top Nato generals, including Lieutenant General Sir Michael Jackson, commander of allied forces in Macedonia, advised their political masters that Kosovo would have to be taken by the end of August if the 800,000 refugees were to start returning home this year, before winter sets in.

Crucially, that message was also delivered to the Clinton administration by General Wesley Clark, the alliance's supreme commander, during a flying and little-remarked visit to Washington last Thursday.

In Macedonia, where the bulk of Nato heavy armour in the region is deployed, preparations are under way for a summer thrust into Kosovo.

The decision on the troops, said military sources in Skopje last night, broadly fits in with a schedule to cross into Kosovo in late July or early August, by which time the ever- escalating air strikes should have severely degraded Serbian armour in the province and seriously weakened morale.

Making an opposed or semi-opposed entry much later would hand back some of the strategic advantage to Mr Milosevic, because bad weather would hamper allied bombing, block access routes and make heavy going on mined roads.

Planners believe that a resisted entry would require airborne troops to secure routes into Kosovo and seize strategic targets around the capital, Pristina, including the airport. Light armour and multiple rocket launchers could be airlifted in to secure captured positions, and commandos would flush out cells of resistance.

But the new determination to keep the ground option open is unnerving some allies. Lamberto Dini, the Italian Foreign Minister, called for a negotiated settlement, and opposed the use of ground forces.

As if to reassure him, Madeleine Albright, the Secretary of State, repeated that the air war was working and troops would be used only to "enforce" a peace settlement.

In another development underlining how ethnic cleansing continues despite the air bombardment, some 1,000 male ethnic Albanian prisoners, earlier presumed killed by Serb forces, were expelled from Kosovo, beaten, starving and exhausted. They said they had been "treated like animals".

"They beat us," said Bahri Hyseni, 30. "They cut some men's ears. They beat us in front of our families."

He was taken from his family and put in prison 22 days ago.

Many were jailed on suspicion of being guerrillas of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) The UN refugee agency, the UNHCR, said they were in poor physical condition. The exodus of Kosovo Albanians to Macedonia continued yesterday. A spokesman for the UNHCR said that up to 7,000 might cross by the end of the day.