Explosion damages court building, vehicles in Kosovo's tense north

Explosion damages court building, vehicles in Kosovo's tense north
Associated Press Worldstream - April 26, 2006 Wednesday 9:30 AM GMT

PRISTINA Serbia-Montenegro - An explosion early Wednesday damaged a municipal court building in northern Kosovo, police said. No one was injured.

The device, believed to have been a hand grenade, went off a few meters (yards) from the court house in the northern town of Zubin Potok, breaking windows in the building and across the street, police spokesman Larry Miller said.

The blast at 1:40 a.m. (2340GMT Tuesday) also damaged four vehicles, but no one was hurt, Miller said in a statement.

NATO-led peacekeepers and police units were dispatched to the scene, he said.

Zubin Potok is a predominantly Serb town, some 45 kilometers (30 miles) north of province's capital, Pristina, and is close to the ethnically divided city Kosovska Mitrovica, which has come to symbolize the split between Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority and Serb minority.

Ethnic Albanians, who comprise about 90 percent of the 2 million population, insist on full independence for Kosovo. But Serbia, and Kosovo's Serb minority, say Belgrade must retain some control.

The province has been under U.N. rule since the end of the war in mid-1999, and negotiations are underway to settle its disputed status by the end of the year.