Key Rugova aide shot to death

The shooting of Enver Maloku worsened the already explosive atmosphere in Kosovo, where the guerrillas are fighting for the Albanian-majority province's independence from Serbia, the main republic in Yugoslavia.

A European official who met with Milosevic yesterday said the Yugoslav leader has set a deadline for the release of the soldiers, who were seized Friday after their convoy strayed into rebel-held territory.

AP PHOTO Yugoslav army soldiers and a vehicle patrol the village of Stari Trg, near Kosovska Mitrovica. The army launched attacks yesterday to relase their eight soldiers.

Knut Vollebaek, the Norwegian foreign minister who chairs the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, warned that Kosovo will explode in bloodshed unless the separatist Kosovo Liberation Army releases the soldiers immediately.

"There is very little time left, and we have to see an immediate release of the hostages if we should avoid a major conflict," Vollebaek said in Belgrade. He did not specify the time limit for Milosevic's deadline.

The OSCE said the captive soldiers were being treated well in a heated building near Stari Trg, a coal-mining village 30 miles northwest of Pristina, the capital of Kosovo. Maloku, the head of the Kosovo Information Center, was shot yesterday afternoon in front of his home in Pristina, and OSCE officials said he was pronounced dead shortly afterward.

Initial reports said Maloku was targeted by a sniper, but the sources later said he was hit by semi-automatic gunfire from three assassins as he was about to leave his car.

Maloku had escaped an earlier assassination attempt in November. He is a close associate of Kosovo Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova, a moderate who has been at odds with the rebel KLA.

Those differences have led to speculation that Maloku's killing may be connected to rivalries among the different Kosovo Albanian factions.

The KLA has refused an appeal by NATO and others to free the soldiers, demanding the release of their own fighters first.

In Switzerland, a rebel spokesperson said yesterday that some of the KLA hostages may be set free, but only in exchange for Albanians held by the authorities - terms the government seems disinclined to accept.

"We are going to make a step forward," Bardhyl Mahmuti told reporters in Geneva, saying "certain of them may be freed" in a deal for Albanians incarcerated by Serbs.

A videotape of the hostages, made available by the OSCE to reporters late yesterday, showed the eight in apparently good condition.

"Since we've been here, nobody has beaten us or abused us verbally," one of the unidentified soldiers told the camera. "They (the KLA) have behaved very correctly."

Milosevic called the kidnapping of the soldiers "a criminal act" yesterday after his talk with Vollebaek.

Their detention is the latest challenge to the off-and-on cease-fire in Kosovo, where more than 1,000 people have been killed in the nearly year-old conflict.

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