Five peacekeepers injured as UN police storm Kosovo courthouse AFP - Tuesday, March 18KOSOVSKA MITROVICA (AFP) - - Three UN police officers and two NATO soldiers were wounded in an explosion Monday as they stormed a courthouse occupied by Serb protesters in this flashpoint Kosovo town, Kosovo police said.


"A blast occurred in northern Kosovo around 8:10 am (0710 GMT) injuring three UN policemen and two KFOR soldiers," Kosovo's local police force said in a statement, without elaborating.
Police spokesman Beshim Hoti said the blast erupted after UN police moved into the court building to arrest more than 50 Serbs who had been occupying the premises since Friday in protest at Kosovo's declaration of independence.
"I suppose it was a hand granade activated in the courthouse yard," he told AFP from the capital Pristina.
Kosovo's UN police force and troops from NATO's KFOR peacekeeping force surrounded the building in armoured vehicles. Kosovo police spokesman Veton Elshani told AFP that they had arrested 53 people.
"The situation is delicate but under control," Elshani said.
A group of some 300 Serbs opposed to Kosovo's independence stormed the UN-run courthouse on Friday. Negotiations with United Nations officials failed over the weekend, and the Serbs refused to leave the premises.
The demonstrators -- many of whom worked in Kosovo's judiciary before the territory came under the administration of the United Nations in 1999 -- said they wanted to set up their own court.
Kosovo's government unilaterally declared independence from Serbia on February 17 and has since been recognised by many Western countries. Serbia and Kosovo Serbs vehemently reject the move as illegal.
As the UN police arrived to surround the building about a hundred angry Serbs gathered and pelted the security forces with stones. Police used tear gas to disperse them, but two UN vehicles were damaged.
Serb protestors managed to seize to least one of the UN police vehicles and free some of the detainees.
Dragoljub Drazevic, one of the freed protestors who was in the vehicle, told AFP: "Police stormed into the building this morning around 5:20 am (0420 GMT). They handcuffed us, searched the offices and put us in a police van.
"When we were coming out of the compound, the van I was in was stopped by Serbs who trashed it and freed us," Drazevic said, adding that he and another five detainees had fled the scene.
Drazevic said UN police and KFOR troops had not used violence against the protestors during the action.
But one of the Serb leaders in Kosovska Mitrovica, Milan Ivanovic, told AFP that the international troops "used inappropriate force" during the operation.
Protesters had earlier said they would stay in the courthouse until after a meeting between UN officials and representatives of the Serbian government that had been expected to take place later on Monday.
However, it was unclear whether the meeting between UN mission chief Joachim Rucker and Serb Minister for Kosovo Slobodan Samardzic would take place.
On Friday, Ruecker had described the protest as "completely unacceptable" and warned that he had "instructed UNMIK police to restore law and order ... and to ensure that the court house is again under UN control."
This was the latest in a series of incidents in northern Kosovo.
Half of the city of Kosovska Mitrovica, north of the river Ibar, and the mineral-rich region around it is home to 40,000 Serbs who have long insisted they do not wish to live in an independent, mainly ethnic Albanian Kosovo.
Along with a further 80,000 Serbs living in enclaves surrounded by Albanian communities south of the Ibar, and the Serbian government in Belgrade, they have refused to accept the territory's independence declaration.
Two days after the February 17 announcement, angry Serbs torched two border crossings with Serbia and have since staged a series of other protests, some of which have turned unruly.
Fears of violence have forced staff preparing for an EU-led international mission set up to assist the move to independence to leave the tense north