2 U.S. Peacekeepers Hurt in Melee
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PRISTINA, Yugoslavia — Two U.S. police officers serving with the NATO-led peacekeeping mission in Kosovo were seriously injured while trying to break up a brawl between Serbs and ethnic Albanians--the second violent incident this week involving Americans in the province.
The two men were struck in the head by stones during a melee Thursday between rival ethnic groups in Kosovska Mitrovica, Kosovo’s most ethnically mixed city, U.N. police spokesman Gilles Moreau said Friday.
The injuries were serious but not life-threatening, he said. The men’s names were not made public.
The clash in northern Kosovo took place one day after an American soldier was killed when his military vehicle struck a land mine near the town of Kosovska Kamenica, in the east.
Army Staff Sgt. Joseph Suponcic, 26, of Jersey Shore, Pa., was a passenger in the utility vehicle, which was traveling on a road believed to have been cleared of mines, Pentagon spokesman Kenneth H. Bacon said.
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