Two Serbian policemen were killed and two were wounded overnight near Bujanovac in southern Serbia where Albanian guerrillas operated until the end of May, police said Saturday.
The policemen were on patrol late Friday in the village of Muhovac, 16 kilometres (10 miles) north of Bujanovac, when they were attacked, said a local police official who asked to remain anonymous.
He was unable to give further details about the incident, the most serious since the rebel Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac (LAPMB) agreed to lay down its arms at the end of May.
It disarmed in line with a peace plan drawn up by Serbian Deputy Premier Nebojsa Covic and applied with the help of the Kosovo multinational peacekeeping force KFOR and US regional representative Peter Feith.
Muhovac was the stronghold of Muhamed Xhemaili, one of the most hardline leaders of the LAPMB which took its name from three towns in south Serbia with a large Albanian population.
But Xhemaili insisted he was not involved in the incident.
"I do not have any connection with this. I do not who did it," Xhemaili told AFP by telephone.
"I am sorry for the deaths of two policemen. I am trying to understand what has happened," Xhemaili said, adding that he had only heard of the incident through media reports.
The clashes between the LAPMB rebels and Serbian government forces lasted for over a year and resulted in 68 dead and 150 wounded on the two sides.
Backed by former members of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), the Albanian rebels in south Serbia seized several villages in a five kilometre (three mile) wide buffer zone created around Kosovo by NATO in mid-June 1999 to separate KFOR from the Yugoslav armed forces that were then commanded by ex-Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic -- BUJANOVAC, Yugoslavia (AFP)
