(14 Apr 2001)
1. Yugoslav armoured vehicles approaches border village
2. APC carriers arrives at border
3. Yugoslav patrol leader directing troops
4. Masked Yugoslav soldiers on patrol
5. Serb troops conduct mine sweeping and clearing operation
6. Yugoslav General shakes hands with local K-FOR commanders
7. SOUNDBITE: (Serbo-Croat) Ninoslav Krstic, Yugoslav Army General "Everything is going according to plan. The operation is going well and we have had no problems. All our units are in position and by the end of the day we will have established direct contact across all control points."
8. Yugoslav troops checking for sniper positions
STORYLINE:
Several hundred Yugoslav soldiers have fanned out into a stretch of a zone separating the NATO-controlled province of Kosovo with the rest of Yugoslavia, in another phase of efforts to quash ethnic Albanian insurgents.
The Yugoslav army's de-mining units, infantry and light artillery spread out in one part of the three-mile-wide zone, which was set up as part of a peace deal that ended NATO's 78-day air war against Yugoslavia.
NATO and the United Nations took over Kosovo when Milosevic's forces left, and the buffer zone was intended to put a breathing space between peacekeepers and Yugoslav troops.
But ethnic Albanian militants seized much of the zone in November, killing seven policemen.
The rebels, known as the Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac, want the primarily ethnic Albanian villages in this part of southern Serbia to throw out Serb rule, as their ethnic kin did in Kosovo.
With Milosevic's demise in October and a new, democratic government now in power in Belgrade, NATO has agreed to the phased return of Yugoslav troops in the area between Kosovo and the rest of Serbia, Yugoslavia's larger republic.
As military vehicles revved up ready to roll into the boundary area on Saturday, the Yugoslav Army General said the ethnic Albanian population had no reason to fear them and that they could expect their support and protection.
The deployment marks the third time Yugoslav soldiers have moved into another section of the zone.
It took place just opposite a Kosovo village where a Russian peacekeeper was shot and killed on Wednesday.
NATO decided earlier this week to allow Yugoslav forces into more of the buffer zone, adding to pressure on ethnic Albanian rebels in the area.
By Saturday noon, the deployment was complete, with about 800 soldiers in place.
Meanwhile, ethnic Albanian rebels released three Serb civilians that had been held since March 4 when they strayed by mistake into rebel-held territory.
Two Yugoslav Army soldiers remain in custody.
But the rebels have agreed to the government forces' return to the buffer zone.
Saturday's deployment has now given the Yugoslav troops control of much of the land around Kosovo.
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