16 March 2001
U.S. Troops Patrol Macedonia Border
By DANICA KIRKA, Associated Press Writer
MIJAK, Yugoslavia (AP) - It's hard to find the U.S. soldiers patrolling the
border between Kosovo and Macedonia - but it's not because they're not there.
It's because the terrain seems to swallow them up. This is unforgiving territory,
a morass of steep hills and switchback trails where American peacekeepers
patrol on foot and in helicopters to try to stop the flow of guerrillas and
weapons to Macedonia.
Peacekeepers are trying to keep ethnic Albanians in Kosovo from helping their
ethnic kin, who are fighting a guerrilla battle in Macedonia for causes that
range from more rights to independence, depending on whom you ask.
The volatile situation has sparked fear of a new Balkan war. But Lt. Jeff
Wilbur, 23, of Annapolis, Md., doesn't get into the details when explaining
the mission to soldiers under his command.
``There's an international incident. There are potentially people breaking
the rules,'' he said. ``We're trying to do what we can to make it peaceful.''
So close they can hear the boom of mortar and watch the movements of Macedonian
soldiers from Yugoslavia, the Americans - of C Company, 1st Battalion ofthe
325th Airborne Infantry Regiment - stand at the edge of a vaguely defined
border. And their task is increasingly coming under scrutiny as the fighting
escalates in Macedonia.
The rebels in Macedonia, known as the National Liberation Army, started fighting
a month ago in villages along the Kosovo border. They appear determined to
expand their struggle from the sparsely inhabited border to Macedonia's principal
cities to the south.
Besides the mountains, one of the few obstacles in the way of rebel supply
lines in and out of Kosovo are people like Spc. Rafael Lovell, 20,
of Rocky Mount, N.C. He stood in the rear of a recent patrol while his comrades
checked out a road swinging around the side of a minefield.
To Lovell, schlepping 50 pounds of gear and hiking the steep hillsides of
Kosovo was all about ``keeping these guys from doing bad things to each other.''
``God wants me to be here,'' he said. ``That's why he put me here.''
Despite the concern over plugging the supply routes, there's only so much
the estimated 5,600 U.S. soldiers stationed in the American sector of Kosovo
can do. Even before there were clashes in Macedonia, there was plenty todo
in Kosovo itself - peacekeeping, mediating between hostile ethnic campsand
staying out of harm's way.
Then there's Kosovo's eastern boundary, where an ethnic Albanian insurgent
group is fighting Serb security forces. This group, the Liberation Army of
Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac, wants the primarily ethnic Albanian villages
in this part of southern Serbia to throw off Serb domination, like theirethnic
kin did in Kosovo.
The Serb province of Kosovo has been run by the United Nations (news - web
sites) and NATO (news - web sites) since the alliance's 1999 airstrikes forced
then-President Slobodan Milosevic (news - web sites) to end his crackdown
on ethnic Albanian insurgents. Now the emergence of the two rebel groupshas
prompted international alarm.
U.S. peacekeepers have stepped up their patrols and proved they can respond
in force if they need too. Last week, during an operation to seize a guerrilla
supply outpost in the tiny border village of Mijak, about 250 soldiers poured
into the area with humvees, helicopters and surveillance planes.
Now nearly half have pulled out, and although violence is building just a
few miles across the border in Macedonia, things have calmed down here. The
Americans moved into a building once used by the rebels. There's a guardpost,
concertina wire - all the comforts of a remote military outpost.
The troops have come to know the area well. Second Lt. Arthur McGrue
, 31, of San Lorenzo, Calif., describes its landmarks with familiarity, such
as ``the little white farmhouse with the woodpile.''
He also believes in vigilance, especially since soldiers under his command
were involved in a shooting incident with rebels last week as they searched
for weapons.
If pressed, he makes it clear that his soldiers, ``have the right to defend
ourselves.''
``I don't worry,'' he said.
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