British peacekeepers serving with Kosovo's NATO-led peacekeeping force have been sent to reinforce security on the province's tense frontier with southern Serbia, a force spokesman said.
Around 150 troops from the Princess of Wales Royal Regiment had been sent to the boundary, to an area south of where US and Russian troops exchanged fire Sunday with unknown attackers, Major Tim Pierce told AFP
"The deployment is not in response to the violence at the weekend, but is obviously as a result of the events in the Presevo valley area," Pierce said.
The British troops have been put at the disposal of the US brigade trying to seal the frontier to ethnic Albanian insurgents, who have been transporting arms and men into southern Serbia's Presevo valley.
The troops are from an armored infantry unit equipped with Warrior armored personnel carriers, mainly recruited from southern England, and attached to the KFOR peacekeeping force as a reserve unit for crisis situations.
It is the second time they have been sent to the area.
The British would operate in an area near both the boundary with Serbia-proper and the border with Macedonia, Pierce said.
On Thursday the commander of KFOR troops in Macedonia warned that arms were also being smuggled to the rebels from Albania via Macedonia.
On Sunday, US and Russian peacekeepers exchanged fire with unidentified attackers further north on the boundary.
No peacekeepers were hurt in the incident, which took place after the patrol had blown up a road used by the rebels to smuggle supplies to their forces inside Serbia.
Ethnic Albanian rebels demanding the independence of the Presevo valley region recently launched an offensive against Serbian police units.
The guerrillas killed at least three officers, drawing a furious response from Yugoslav authorities, who demanded NATO do more to cut off their support from Kosovo -- PRISTINA (AFP)
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