As deadlines come and go in Rambouillet with zero for results, fighting continues here in Kosovo. Today it snowed so I thought all would be quiet but of course that’s not how it works. Went up to the small village of Bukos where a Serb civilian was killed yesterday by the KLA outside his home. At the foot of the hill, a MUP (Ministry Of Interior Police) checkpoint stopped us with white winter breath clouding their interrogation. They were tense and jumpy, and we had to move our cars in the middle of the conversation to let several armored cars and lorries full of soldiers pass. Finally they let us go through and we could hear the barking of a Praga and the whump of outgoing mortars. The mortars were dug into shallow pits a few meters from the road, firing them a methodical exercise. Further up we saw the Praga, spitting out empty shell casings as it blasted away at something we could not see.

There was bright red blood in the white snow, which everyone nonchalantly ignored and incongruently walked over. I went inside the house and found the old mother all in black sitting next to the body of her son laid out on the living room table. A single candle burned.

The Serbs moved in tanks, mortars, and APCs to engage the KLA. We all stupidly followed this tank as it went up the road. I heard and then actually saw a KLA anti-tank rocket fly through the air and hit the ridge behind us. Then all hell broke loose with major bang bang and everyone hit the dirt. The first group of photographers in front of me took cover behind the tank which is the safest place but also the prime target. I threw myself down in a ditch next to a fence and house. Maybe fifteen minutes of pretty intense shooting followed, mostly outgoing. Another KLA rocket hit the road fifteen or twenty feet in front of the tank and I was worried, but the Albanians don’t have that many heavy weapons so they fired only two more big ones. A Serbian soldier popped up from a ditch and raising his rifle over his head, emptied his clip, and dove down again, quite satisfied.

Vlora, an Albanian translator, started screaming and crying in panic and I did my best to calm her down. In between bursts of shooting everything seemed incredibly quiet and beautiful. I think the first group of photographers got good pix but I was too far back. We waited until everything quieted down a bit and then retreated. Back in town I ran into Visar, the Albanian AP photographer, who was with the KLA on the other side, where it was much worse with the Serb shelling. Thomas Dworzak, who was with me, managed to reach the KLA later in the day also, and those guys apologized to him. They said, “sorry, man, we see a tank coming down the road, we shoot!” Sirjan Ilic, the Serb AP photographer, got wounded earlier in the day by shrapnel, but he’s fine, thank God. So a busy day here in the former Yugoslavia.