Another nasty day here in Kosovo. We spent the whole morning and afternoon trying to chase down the KLA delegation going to Paris for the peace talks–these guys are on the most wanted list of the Serbs, yet the Serbs will negotiate with them in France–so a convoluted plan was made whereby the French Air Force flew a plane into Pristina airport, and the OSCE with their orange cars would bring the Albanians to the plane.

Needless to say we spent hours hanging out at roadsides and checkpoints waiting for them, and when it finally happened it was nothing more than a speeding convoy to the airport, a done deal.

Then we heard that bombs went off in the Mitrovica and Podujevo markets, killing between 5 and 7 people and wounding more than 60. So in the fading light we rushed up to Mitrovica, passing three ambulances going to Pristina, and on the way we saw huge plumes of smoke and red flames from burning villages in the middle distance. We pulled over and could hear the thumps every thirty seconds of heavy shells.

We continued to Mitrovica, to the market next to the mosque where I spent an afternoon two weeks ago, and saw three dead bodies amidst strewn vegetables, fruit, and broken eggs. There was a spilled bag with balls of unspun bloodstained yarn. One of the dead was a three year old girl. The Serb police treated us like shit, as usual, and one of them threw an orange at me while I was taking pictures.

A helicopter came in low over the city, a red cross painted on its side, and it landed at the hospital, where we then went. Thug-like Serbs in civilian clothes prevented us from going inside or even talking to any doctors, let alone the injured. I got into a shouting match with those guys, then cooled off and we dashed back to Pristina in the dark under early Sunday deadline pressure. Along the road we could see again the burning houses; I counted eight bright twinkling fires.

So who was responsible for these bombs, days before another round of peace talks? KLA extremists? Serb secret police provocateurs? Serb paramilitary psychos? Who knows?