Yugoslav military and political authorities were defiant early today following NATO's air and cruise missile assaults which are believed to have hit and disabled several targets.
Belgrade state-run radio claimed that a NATO warplane was shot down in Kosovo over the Cicavica mountains, in the north of the province. The claim was later denied by NATO.
Ominously, perhaps, the radio specifically mentioned Albania in relation to the attacks, noting that 24 attacking NATO aircraft had flown in across Albania, the country to which most of Kosovo's 90 per cent population are ethnically attached.
The broadcast also claimed that three NATO missiles had been knocked out by Yugoslav air defence units before they were able to hit their targets.
Yugoslav army headquarters said "more than 20 sites" had been targeted in a first wave of what it called an act of aggression. Belgrade city officials said three locations around the Yugoslav capital were hit, Studio B radio reported.
Three strong explosions were heard near Avala mountain, 20 km from Belgrade, the radio said. Army barracks are located in that area.
Studio B also said a radar station was hit in suburban Rakovica, with four more explosions heard at Batajnica, site of a military airport, and spoke of eight explosions in all. Earlier, as air-raid sirens wailed, the capital's information centre urged Belgrade's residents to take shelter.
"Enemy aircraft are heading to Belgrade," it declared via radio.
In Kosovo's capital, Pristina, five strong explosions were seen and heard beginning around 8 p.m. (1900 GMT), followed by the sounds of anti-aircraft fire. Three or four explosions were reported in Novi Sad, north of the Yugoslav capital, Belgrade, according to a journalist for a local newspaper. Strong explosions were also heard around 8.30 p.m. (2030 GMT) near the airport of Montenegro's capital, Podgorica, the official Tanjug news agency reported.
Other detonations were heard in the north of Montenegro, near Danilovgrad.
Shortly before the attacks began, President Slobodan Milosevic said his government was right to reject NATO troops in Kosovo and urged his fellow citizens to resist the air strikes.
"The only right decision was to reject foreign troops on our territory," Mr Milosevic said in a nation-wide television address. "We shall defend the country if it is attacked," he added in a five-minute television address.
"At this moment, when we are exposed to threats and danger of NATO attacks, everyone should do their jobs. Every citizen will contribute to the defence of the country if he successfully completes his regular working duties in production, health, education and cultural institutions.
"In that way everyone will best help the bodies of state defence, the Yugoslav army and internal security forces to carry out their duties of the defence of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the nation."
Yugoslavia's army chief-of-staff denounced the attacks as NATO aggression. The army said NATO was acting on the orders of the United States, which it called "the world policeman" and "on behalf of the Albanian independence fighters".
"Military forces of the Atlantic pact, following the dictate and the interests of the world policeman and acting on behalf of the Albanian terrorists and separatists, brutally violated Yugoslav sovereign territory and jeopardised the lives of its citizens," the army said.
"Air defence installations, which discovered in time the aggressors' missiles and efficiently reacted, were not destroyed and will remain in combat position and readiness for such actions," it added.
"The Yugoslav army is taking all measures for defence and protection," the army chief-of-staff said.
"The operational and combat capacity is on the highest possible level, and the morale and motivation of the soldiers and officers are high," it said, adding that "volunteers are turning up en masse to defend the homeland."
The NATO attack "marks the end of international law, suspends the United Nations Charter and opens a sad chapter in the history of the world," the army said.