The US President, Mr Clinton, has decided to deploy low-flying AH-64 Apache helicopters, and troops to support them, to Albania for possible use against Serb tanks and forces in Kosovo, the national security adviser, Mr Samuel (Sandy) Berger said yesterday.
Mr Berger denied that the step signalled the start of a widening ground war against Yugoslavia and insisted that a ground invasion of the southern Serbian province was not in the US national interests. But the deployment of Apaches would introduce a ground attack weapon that, while lethal against tanks, operates at low altitudes in a region infested with surface-to-air missiles.
Acknowledging the risks, Mr Berger said the Apaches were "something that our military commander believes would be useful and I think the President feels it is a reasonable request and it is a judgement he should make. The chairman of the joint chiefs and secretary of defence concurred in that judgement," he said.
"Listen, we have to achieve our objectives here," he said in an interview with CBS television.
"We've got to continue an unrelenting bombing campaign to severely damage the apparatus of military repression of [Yugoslav President] Slobodan Milosevic so that either he agrees to let these refugees back to live in autonomy and security, or at the very least we loosen his grip and his ability to impose his will on Kosovo," he said. Mr Berger, who said the deployments would be carried out "with as much dispatch as possible," did not say how many Apaches or support troops would be sent to Albania.
The Washington Post said 2,000 troops would be deployed to operate the Apaches and multiple-launch rocket systems, which fire both short-range rockets and longer-range Army Tactical Missile System rockets.
"We do not believe that an invasion force going into Serbia, going into Kosovo is in the national interests," Mr Berger said. "It would take weeks if not months to assemble, fighting village to village, there would be thousands of casualties. We do not think it is necessary to achieve our objectives," he added.
The deployment of Apache helicopters is "a step in the right direction, but it's got to be part of a significant build-up," said Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican and former Navy pilot who was taken prisoner during the Vietnam War. "This situation needs to be remedied and remedied quickly, and the only way we are going to be able to do that is to bring the full might of American military and NATO capability to bear," he said.
In Britain, the RAF announced that Harrier pilots were being sent to hunt down mobile Serb paramilitary units for the first time. But the search-and-destroy mission ended in yet more frustration after the units, identified by other aircraft from the NATO force, moved on before the Harriers could reach them.
This is the first time the men, stationed at NATO's Gioia del Colle air base in Italy, have taken part in an operation to hunt down the army and special forces units accused of carrying out atrocities. A similar mission was launched last week but was halted by the poor weather which has also prevented the Harrier GR7s from dropping bombs for seven consecutive days.
Three US soldiers captured by Serb forces will not be put on trial and will be freed when the NATO bombing ends, a Serb cabinet minister said yesterday.
"Of course they will not be tried and they will be back in their homes as soon as this stupidity stops," Mr Milan Bozic, minister without portfolio in the Yugoslavian government, said on the ABC programme This Week.