NATO jets accidentally hit Bulgaria

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- NATO warplanes hammered at targets across Serbia and its junior partner Montenegro today on the 37th day of its air campaign but accidentally struck Bulgaria's capital when one of its missiles went awry.

NATO spokesman Jamie Shea said one of the alliance's jet fighters launched the missile "in self-defense in response to the threat from a surface-to-air missile" after Yugoslav ground radar locked onto the plane.

He said "the missile strayed from its target and unintentionally landed in Bulgaria," which borders southeastern Yugoslavia. Nobody was hurt but Bulgarian President Petar Stoyanov urged citizens not to panic and demanded an explanation from NATO about what happened.

"We understand that no civilians suffered a loss of life from what happened there," Shea said of the Wednesday night accident in Sofia's Gorna Banja district, about 30 miles east of the Yugoslav border, but promised to "minimize still further the chance of this happening again."

Refugees fleeing Kosovo, meanwhile, told of seeing piles of bodies of men who had been detained and apparently executed by Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's forces.

On the diplomatic front, former Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin flew to Germany. Chernomyrdin said he would present "concrete proposals" in Bonn, Rome and Belgrade in a two-day shuttle mission, but said the key precondition for peace remains a halt to NATO's airstrikes.

"What talks can there be otherwise? It is useless trying to resolve the problem under bombs," Chernomyrdin said.

The Russian plan calls for a U.N.-controlled international peacekeeping force in Kosovo but a top government official rejected the notion of any military force whatsoever in the province.

"No armed forces will be allowed to come, not even U.N. peacekeepers." said Serbian Deputy Premier Vojislav Seselj, an ultranationalist whose views generally reflect those of Milosevic.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has cautioned against a settlement anytime soon.

Annan had talks with Russian President Boris Yeltsin, who stressed the need for the United Nations to play a major role. "The stakes are now very high, not only for the Balkans and Europe, but for the whole world," Yeltsin said.

In a new sign of defiance, Yugoslavia filed World Court cases against 10 alliance members today, claiming their bombing campaign breaches international law.

The alliance struck the Montenegrin capital of Podgorica with some 40 missiles early today, sending flames spiraling into the sky, state radio reported.

Shea said strikes were made on airfield targets including radar facilities, aircraft hangars and petroleum storage sites. Yugoslav aircraft based at the Podgorica airfield "pose a direct threat to NATO forces," he said.

Belgrade's Studio B television said the coastal towns of Bar and Petrovac also were hit, underscoring NATO's refusal to spare Serbia's smaller partner in the Yugoslav federation, despite its pro-Western leadership and attempts to distance itself from Milosevic.

Montenegro's president, Milo Djukanovic, called on the Serb people "to listen to voices of democracy and reason" and end the standoff with the Western alliance.

"Belgrade must stop its suicidal policies of confrontation with the whole world and look for a political solution to establish peace in Kosovo," Djukanovic told The Associated Press.

NATO began bombing Yugoslavia on March 24 in an effort to get Milosevic to end his crackdown on ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. More than 600,000 refugees have fled Kosovo since last month, and hundreds of thousands more are homeless and displaced in the southern Serb province.

Besides the accidental airstrike in Sofia, Shea said targets hit overnight included Serb forces in Kosovo and military headquarters in Belgrade.

On Tuesday, a laser-guided NATO missile veered about 250 yards off course and struck a residential area in the Serb town of Surdulica, killing 20 people.

On April 12, a NATO missile targeting a bridge struck a passenger train in southeastern Serbia, killing 17, and 75 refugees reportedly died in an April 14 attack on a convoy near Djakovica, Kosovo.

NATO officials acknowledge the errors but say only "a tiny fraction" of its 4,500-plus air attacks on Milosevic's war machine have led to "unintended consequences."

The alliance also struck Milosevic's hometown of Pozarevac, 50 miles southeast of Belgrade. A missile slammed into a building near the railway station, the Tanjug news agency said.

Two missiles struck Prizren in southern Kosovo late Wednesday, killing at least four people, the Serb-run Media Center in Kosovo's capital said.

Yugoslav media said other NATO strikes today destroyed a major bridge over the Sava River west of Belgrade and damaged an adjacent one; struck the oil refinery in Novi Sad, Yugoslavia's second-largest city; and hit an oil storage depot in Pozega, 70 miles south of Belgrade.

More than 6,000 refugees crossed into Albania and Macedonia on Wednesday in what U.N. aid officials suggested might be part of a "final push" to expel remaining ethnic Albanians from Kosovo.