NATO Cluster Bombs Kill Serbs
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US troops out of Europe!
Chronology of KLA
NATO Campaign
Letters from Yugoslavia
A Discussion: Robbie vs. Deepshooter
Slouching Toward Peace
An American Opinion
Mineral Resources in Kosovo
Humanitarian Disaster
Motivations and Consequences
Clinton`s Scheme
Evolution of Democracy
Last Free People in Europe
German Interests in War
Do not Sell the Hide
Obscene Hipocrasy
When Will the Media Call It War
NATO Briefing
Deception
Who is the liar
Case Against Further Bombing
World Power Oil Gold
Bankers New World Order
Bombing Free Press
There will be no III World War
Why are there no Serbian refugees?
Why Kosovars Flee
Houston
US Bombing of Albanian Refugees
Winning and Losing
After the Slaughter
Kosovars vs. Kurds
New Roman Empire (12 articles)
Essence of the New World Order
NATO Cluster Bombs Kill Serbs
The NATO Coup That Failed
The Method of Distortion
NATO`s Victory
Why New World Order Hates Serbs
Enforcing Agreements
A War of Words
Krajina - The Croatian Invasion



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avgust 20, 2008

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NATO cluster bombs kill Serb troops

By Martin McLaughlin
10 July 1999

The US-NATO air war against Yugoslavia culminated Monday in the biggest one-day slaughter since the bombing campaign began, with as many as 600 Yugoslav Army soldiers killed when their column was hit by cluster bombs from a single B-52 bomber.

American and NATO officials said two battalions of Yugoslav troops had left their bomb shelters to engage a Kosovo Liberation Army force that had crossed the Kosovo-Albania border near Mt. Pastrik. The soldiers, who numbered between 800 and 1,200, were caught in the open on the mountain hillside.

According to the Washington Post account, "Initial aerial assessments showed such massive annihilation that fewer than half the targeted troops are believed to have survived." Cluster bombs scatter hundreds of powerful explosive charges when they detonate, each charge capable of inflicting multiple casualties. The bomb is used as an anti-personnel weapon and is particularly effective against massed ground troops.

The massacre on Mt. Pastrik was the worst of a series of mass killings by NATO warplanes during the eleven-week bombardment of Yugoslavia. NATO officials estimated last week that 5,000 Yugoslav soldiers had been killed and 10,000 wounded, and the death toll has increased significantly this week, with hundreds of casualties each day from intense bombing, especially in Kosovo.

The stepped-up bombing has been closely coordinated with the KLA's activities on the ground, demonstrating the role of the guerrilla force as a direct instrument of US-NATO policy. The KLA launched an offensive in late May, which failed to hold much territory inside Kosovo. Nor was it really intended to. Its purpose was to engage Yugoslav Army forces in combat and have NATO warplanes annihilate them from the air.

KLA guerrillas have also carried out an increasingly aggressive series of terrorist attacks on Serb targets in Kosovo, especially on passenger buses traveling between the cities. A Serb bus driver was killed Tuesday when KLA gunmen ambushed a passenger bus bound from Pristina, the Kosovo capital, for Belgrade. Another bus driver and four passengers were wounded in a second attack just outside Pristina, while a Serb passenger was killed in an attack Sunday on a bus near Kosovska Mitrovica.

These shootings go beyond retaliation against Serb police and government officials involved in attacks on Kosovar Albanians. The KLA is clearly seeking to intimidate the Serb minority in Kosovo and create the conditions for a full-scale flight of the Serb population once the Yugoslav Army is withdrawn and NATO troops and KLA guerrillas take over the province. As many as 200,000 Serb civilians would become targets for a new round of ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia.

The gruesome death toll on Mt. Pastrik is reminiscent of another military slaughter in the waning days of another US war against a small and completely out-gunned opponent — "Highway to Death" the Persian Gulf War against Iraq. After a six-week aerial bombardment and a four-day ground war that destroyed much of the Iraqi army, there was a wild flight of thousands of soldiers and civilians from Kuwait back across the border into Iraq. Navy and Air Force jets caught one long column of fleeing Iraqi vehicles on the Kuwait to Basra highway and pounded it mercilessly with bombs and machine-gun fire. As we described it at the time: "Soldiers seeking to flee north away from the fighting were attacked without mercy. Pilots flying missions against the highway between Kuwait City and Basra, the main evacuation route for Iraqi troops, described the systematic bombing and strafing as ‘shooting in a sheep pen.' The road, clogged by four lanes of one-way, bumper-to-bumper traffic, was carpet bombed by B-52s dropping 1,000-pound bombs, and repeatedly hit with laser-guided missiles and ‘smart' bombs".

Like the attack on the "Highway of Death," there was no military necessity for the cluster-bomb attack on Yugoslav conscripts on Mt. Pastrik. The Yugoslav government had already capitulated to the US-NATO air war and committed itself to a complete withdrawal from Kosovo, while discussions were stalled in Macedonia over the exact timetable and modus operandi for implementation. The immensity of the slaughter, however, sheds light on the legitimate concerns of Yugoslav military officials over the terms of the withdrawal and their desire to secure guarantees for the safety of their retreating troops.

This assault was above all staged to demonstrate the ruthlessness of American and European imperialism, and make of the Serbs an object lesson to the other peoples of the region that no resistance to US-NATO dictates will be tolerated.

But the Serbs will not forget this. NATO will occupy Kosovo only until the Serbs decide that its time for NATO to learn an object lesson to the other peoples of the region what resistance to US-NATO is.