PRISTINA, Yugoslavia -- Kosovo rebels refused Friday to accept anything short of independence, rejecting a key element of a U.S.-proposed settlement as new border shootings put dangerous strains on the province's fragile peace.
Escalating violence in Kosovo, including a shootout Friday in the province's second-largest city, has lent new urgency to American-led efforts to get Serbs and ethnic Albanians to agree on a plan for Kosovo's future. Thirteen ethnic Albanians have been reported killed this week.The Kosovo Liberation Army dealt a further setback to diplomacy Friday, dismissing recent signals that the rebels were ready to support a U.S. proposal.
The ethnic Albanian guerrillas said in a statement distributed in Pristina that they won't accept any political solution "which would harm the ideals of our people toward independence, or which would cement, even temporarily, an imposed joint life in an anti-Albanian, anti-democratic" system.
A KLA political representative signaled last week that the rebels were ready to postpone independence and accept a plan giving ethnic Albanians greater self-rule. But the KLA said Friday it was "undeterred" in its "just fight until our independent and democratic state is established."
The rebels said they would publish a detailed response later on a revised U.S. plan, which called for an interim political status for Kosovo and was distributed to the Serb and ethnic Albanian sides this week.
A Western diplomat, who declined to be named, called news of the KLA's rejection discouraging.
Dozens of people have died in sporadic clashes since an Oct. 12 peace agreement halted more than seven months of combat in the secessionist Serbian province, which is populated overwhelmingly by ethnic Albanians.
Ethnic Albanian political leader Ibrahim Rugova renewed his call for international military intervention in the wake of the latest violence.
"NATO ground troop deployment would provide a greater sense of security," he said at a news conference.
The flareup in violence this week is "a sign that we need a special security force which will protect citizens and stop violence in Kosovo," Rugova said.
A reported clash Friday that killed a woman in the western town of Pec raised the death toll from the last three days to 13 -- all ethnic Albanians.
The Serb-run Media Center said six people also were wounded in a shootout that erupted after a man and woman attacked a Serb policeman guarding Pec's hospital.