Kosovo back on the brink Tension rises in Kosovo

KOSOVO STOOD on a knife edge last night, as Yugoslavia threatened force to free Serbian soldiers held prisoner by ethnic Albanian guerillas, and unknown assassins shot dead a close aide of the province's moderate Albanian leader.

Urged by both Nato and Russia as well as the Pope, and threatened with imminent military reprisal from President Slobodan Milosevic, the insurgents yesterday seemed on the brink of releasing some at least of the eight hostages they captured in northern Kosovo four days ago.

"We will release some of them, probably this evening or on Tuesday," Bardyl Mahmuti, the European political representative of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), said in Geneva yesterday. But KLA commanders said the hostages would only be freed if the Serbian authorities themselves released nine Albanian prisoners.

But there was no guarantee Belgrade would accept such a trade-off - nor that a partial release would be sufficient to avert a frontal attack by the Yugoslav tanks stationed close to the town of Stari Trg in northern Kosovo, where the two men are being held. This in turn would probably sweep away the final vestiges of the ceasefire agreed last October.

Time was running out, a senior European official warned after meeting Mr Milosevic in Belgrade yesterday. Knut Volleback, chairman of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), claimed he had persuaded the Yugoslav President to stay his hand a little longer. But "there must be an immediate release of the prisoners if a major conflict is to be avoided."

OSCE negotiators were yesterday desperately trying to broker a deal over the soldiers.Last night they too seemed optimistic an agreement was close, including an exchange of prisoners. But in a sign its patience has almost run out, Belgrade has sent the army chief of staff, General Dragoljub Ojdanic to Pristina, to take charge of any operations in person.

Tensions in the Kosovan capital, already high ahead of a planned demonstration by the province's ever more frightened Serb minority, were further fuelled last night by the murder of a close aide to Ibrahim Rugova, the Kosovo Albanians' political leader.

According to international officials, Enver Maloku, the head of the pro- Rugova Kosovo Information Centre, was shot outside his home and died later in hospital. The assassination may have been carried out by the KLA, opposed to Rugova's advocacy of a peaceful solution to the crisis.