Ibrahim Rugova

Serbian police broke up the first session of an ethnic Albanian parliament in restive Kosovo province Thursday but not before Ibrahim Rugova was sworn in as the self-declared republic's president.

Moderate ethnic Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova was elected president of Kosovo on Monday in a key step toward building the political structures of democratic self-rule--and perhaps toward ethnic reconciliation. A new parliament in the southern Serbian province also elected Bajram Rexhepi as prime minister. Rexhepi, 47, is a surgeon who broke with Rugova's party four years ago, then worked as a field doctor for the Kosovo Liberation Army.

On the propaganda front, at least, Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic scored two big victories Thursday, trotting out three captured U.S. soldiers and meeting with the top Kosovo Albanian politician. Video of the American soldiers, at least one apparently bruised and bloodied, led state television news bulletins every hour until late afternoon, when Milosevic matched it with another TV coup.

Lawmakers in Kosovo's new parliament failed to elect a president after rival parties boycotted a first round of voting. Ibrahim Rugova's Democratic League of Kosovo won Nov. 17 parliamentary elections with 46% of the vote, mandating a coalition. Rugova has discussed sharing power with former rebel leader Hashim Thaci, head of the Democratic Party of Kosovo. Thaci's party and one other refused to cast ballots for the presidency.

Serbian sources said ethnic Albanian guerrillas killed 10 police officers in Kosovo province as diplomatic efforts continued to end the violence. Serbian media sources said four officers were killed and three wounded in the Decani area, along with three members of the Kosovo Liberation Army. The site where the other officers died was not given. U.S.

Fehmi Agani, a prominent politician and member of the Kosovo Albanian delegation at February's failed peace talks in France, was found dead today, the state-run Tanjug news agency reported. Tanjug said Agani's body was found by police in Lipljan, about 12 miles south of Kosovo's capital, Pristina. The agency blamed the killing on the Kosovo Liberation Army. Agani was a close aide of Ibrahim Rugova, Kosovo's ethnic Albanian leader who was allowed to leave the country for Rome on Wednesday.

A prominent hard-liner and rival to ethnic Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova agreed to lead the separatist Kosovo Liberation Army's political wing. In doing so, Adem Demaci in effect establishes himself as an alternative leader of Kosovo's majority ethnic Albanians, setting back U.S. efforts to unite the community behind one leader for peace talks. Rugova had announced that he had formed a delegation to begin talks with Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic on the Serbian province's future.

Easing its demand for an immediate pullback of Serbian forces in Kosovo, the Clinton administration said Wednesday that there will probably have to be a cease-fire before Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic withdraws the units that have cracked down on secessionists and civilians. The shift, signaled by State Department spokesman James P.

The top political leader of Kosovo's ethnic Albanians appealed Friday for direct NATO intervention in the province, fearing that Serbian forces are readying new attacks on his people. "NATO should undertake all possible measures to prevent further massacres and protect the people of Kosovo," Ibrahim Rugova told a news conference in Pristina, the capital of the southern Serbian province. Ethnic Albanians outnumber Serbs in Kosovo, 9 to 1.

In a move to bring stability to Kosovo, the province's senior U.N. administrator signed a power-sharing deal Wednesday with ethnic Albanian leaders and called on the Serbian minority to join in. The province's Serbian leadership rejected the agreement. Serbs called it another step toward an independent, Albanian-run Kosovo, which would violate the U.N. resolutions that established the international peacekeeping mission here in June. U.N.