NATO steps in as Kosovo border post torched

Serbs burned down one border post and were attacking asecond, a Kosovo police spokesman said. Police manning the postcalled for help from the NATO peacekeeping force, KFOR, whichsaid it was stepping in.

"KFOR is going to intervene now," a force spokesman said.He declined to say which troops of the 35-nation, 17,000-strongforce were being deployed.

The violence highlights the challenge facing a EuropeanUnion law enforcement mission preparing to deploy in theAlbanian-majority territory which has been under U.N.administration for nearly nine years.

"We are inches from partition," said a Western official.

He said he believed it was "only a matter of time beforeKFOR closes the bridges" that cross the River Ibar in theflashpoint city of Mitrovica, dividing Kosovo Serbs fromAlbanians.

Some 2 million Albanians live in Kosovo alongside around120,000 remaining Serbs. Half of these are concentrated in anarea running north from Mitrovica to the Serbian border, therest in isolated enclaves further south.

A spokesman for the EU's International Civilian Office,whose Dutch leader Pieter Feith is expected in Kosovo any day,said there was no plan to withdraw a small advance EU team fromthe north side of Mitrovica. They would stay on and carry outtheir mandate, he told Reuters.

TUNNEL

"Protesters have destroyed the border crossing post at Gate1 in Jarinje," a Kosovo police spokesman said. "No one has beeninjured." Serbs were also attacking a second post near ZubinPotok, he said.

Police took shelter in a tunnel there as more than 1,000protesters tried to tear it down, Kosovo police sources said.

"We asked NATO to send a helicopter to evacuate ourofficers," a police source told Reuters in Pristina.

KFOR forces in the district include French, Danish, Belgianand American units.

Local Serbs backed by the Serbian government and Russia saythe planned EU supervisory mission to Kosovo, which will deploy2,000 police and justice officials, is illegitimate and warnthat its authority will not be accepted.

EU foreign affairs chief Javier Solana was expected inKosovo later in the day to congratulate leaders on Sunday'sindependence declaration, recognised by most major Westernpowers but denounced by Serbia and Russia as illegal secession.

But angry Serb demonstrations and two nights of vandalismagainst vehicles and symbols of the international presence inKosovo have thrown down a gauntlet to the incoming "EULEX"mission.

The EU expects to send the 2,000 police and justiceofficials to Kosovo to take over from the U.N. mission that hasadministered the province since NATO intervened in 1999 to enda Serb counter-insurgency war.

NATO had said on Monday conditions on the ground in Kosovowere quiet after its declaration of independence and there wasno current need to reinforce its peacekeeping force.

(Writing by Douglas Hamilton, edited by Richard Meares)