NATO yesterday admitted a bomb missed its military target and might have hit a hospital, reducing it to rubble and killing three people. However, NATO's Gen Walter Jertz said that until a battle damage assessment was complete the alliance could not confirm whether the bomb hit the hospital.
The atmosphere at NATO headquarters in Brussels was strained as Gen Jertz and the NATO spokesman, Mr Jamie Shea, were grilled by journalists to give details of the attack on Belgrade, the heaviest for some weeks.
"I can tell you that NATO aircraft targeted and struck a Belgrade army barracks - I insist an army barracks - at about 1 a.m. on Thursday morning," Mr Shea responded. He said that several laser-guided bombs were dropped on the target but one failed to guide correctly, striking the base of a building about 1,500 feet from the target area.
The Swedish ambassador's residence was also damaged in the raid. Although the Swedish government accepted apologies from the allies, some officials were clearly unhappy with the situation, described by one as "unacceptable".
The Italian Prime Minister, Mr Massimo d'Alema, was in Brussels yesterday and said he had called on NATO for a ceasefire to see if a few days of quiet would help the diplomatic effort. But the other allies did not agree.
"NATO's position is unchanged," Mr Shea insisted. "Our strategy is unchanged and there will be no relief for President [Slobodan] Milosevic's forces on the ground in Kosovo until those forces withdraw."
To talk about a ceasefire was speculative at this point, he added.
Wednesday's attacks on Serbia were very heavy, the spokesman said. There was increased Serbian anti-aircraft activity, but the allied attacks destroyed many more Serb tanks, armoured vehicles and artillery positions.
According to NATO, there has been Serb activity in the area around the border between Kosovo and Albania, where in recent days Serb incursions into Albania have put the refugees and relief workers at risk.
Reuters adds:
A German government source said the West and Russia had narrowed differences over a peace plan but he believed diplomats of the so-called Group of Eight (G8) countries were unlikely to clinch a deal when they met again in Bonn today. Speaking after foreign ministry officials from the eight wound up talks in Bonn yesterday, the source said there had been significant progress toward sketching out a "road map" of how to end Yugoslavia's conflict with NATO.
But major sticking points remained, mainly between Moscow and the Western powers, over the lead-up to a withdrawal of Serb forces from Kosovo, an end to NATO's bombing and the return of ethnic Albanian refugees under international protection, as well as over the role NATO would have in such a peacekeeping force.
In Moscow, Russia's Balkan envoy, Mr Viktor Chernomyrdin, briefed President Martti Ahtisaari of Finland, the European Union's Kosovo envoy, on his seven hours of talks in Belgrade on Wednesday with President Milosevic.
Asked as he left the Finnish embassy whether he had any news on the ongoing talks, Mr Chernomyrdin said: "Yes, good news."