Serbs in the northern Kosovo city of Mitrovica fired weapons and threw grenades at international peacekeepers on Monday, wounding dozens of police officers and NATO troops.
The clash was the worst violence since Kosovo declared independence from Serbia on Feb. 17. It began at dawn when UN police officers raided a UN courthouse that had been seized by Serbs on Friday, arresting 53 people.
Capt. Veton Elshani, a spokesman for the Kosovo Police Service, said from Pristina, Kosovo’s capital, that several hundred Serbs responded by shooting at the police and throwing rocks and grenades. Police, he said, then used stun guns and tear gas.
The clashes, on the four-year anniversary of violence that left 19 people dead, were part of a campaign by Serbs to foil Pristina’s administration of northern Kosovo and force a de facto partition of the territory.
Elshani said the rioters freed 21 of the detained Serbs by blocking UN cars carrying them. At least four UN and NATO vehicles were burned, he said, and police were forced to pull out of northern Mitrovica, leaving NATO troops to face rioters.
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