Nato's warning to Serbs

NATO TROOPS will hold exercises in the Balkans next week, a tactic aimed at increasingpressure on Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic, it was announced yesterday. "I don't think that he should doubt our ability to move forces in very quickly, whether they be air forces or ground forces," a Pentagon spokesman said.

In the last few days, international human rights groups and the US congress have made new calls for outside intervention in the Serbian enclave of Kosovo following increased evidence of violence and ethnic cleansing.

An exercise in Albania, to be called Co-operative Assembly, will include the US, Britain and nine other Nato countries, Russia, Lithuania and the host nation, according to Nato's military committee. It will include air, land and naval forces.

Earlier, the US State department said that it had warned President Milosevic that military action would follow if he did not rein back his forces.