BELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- NATO missiles destroyed a major bridge over the Danube River in Serbia's second-largest city Thursday, while Yugoslav television aired footage of three captured U.S. soldiers with what appeared to be abrasions on their faces.
The Yugoslav army said the Americans were caught Wednesday in southern Yugoslavia. NATO insisted the soldiers were in Macedonia, about three miles from Yugoslavia's border, when they reported being fired at and surrounded by Yugoslav troops."No more was heard from the patrol," NATO said.
Yugoslavia said it would put the three on trial Friday. A report by the Tanjug news agency said Jovica Jovanovic, a judicial official in Pristina, said an authorized military court would conduct the trial.
The three grim-faced soldiers, dressed in camouflage, appeared on Serb television with what appeared to be cuts on their faces. One seemed to have a cotton patch on the back of his head.
"We've all seen their pictures. We don't like it," NATO supreme commander Gen. Wesley Clark said Thursday in Brussels, Belgium. "We don't like the way they're treated, and we have a long memory about these kinds of things."
The report showing the three soldiers was apparently aired from Kosovo's capital, Pristina, implying the captured men, based in Wuerzburg, Germany, were being held there.
President Clinton demanded immediate release of the three and that the Red Cross be granted access to the men, identified as Staff Sgt. Andrew A. Ramirez, 24, of Los Angeles; Staff Sgt. Christopher J. Stone, 25, of Smiths Creek, Mich.; and Spec. Steven M. Gonzales, 24, of Huntsville, Texas.
The soldiers, part of a NATO peacekeeping force, were patrolling a region with no precise or defined border between Macedonia and Yugoslavia, Macedonian Interior Minister Pavle Trajanov said.
The terrain is rugged, with small valleys, hills and streams. Troops occasionally separate from one another to go around small hills, but most of the Army vehicles have Global Positioning Systems, which can pinpoint their location to a few yards.
Many of those who live in the area are either ethnic Serbs or Macedonian nationalists angry at NATO military strikes on their neighbor and the presence of foreign troops on their soil.
NATO's aerial bombardment continued unabated Thursday, with missiles knocking out a major Danube River bridge in Novi Sad, Serbia's second-biggest city with a half-million people, Serbian media said. Military warehouses are at one end of the bridge.
The government's Tanjug news agency said 10 missiles had struck around Pristina since Wednesday night.
"The ring is closing around the Yugoslav forces," NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana said Thursday.
But Air Marshal Sir John Day, director of Britain's air operations, complained that poor weather slowed the pace of the bombing.
"Given the circumstances, I am satisfied of our progress to date but disappointed that we have not been able to achieve more because of the weather," Day said.
British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook said that reports of a shakeup in the high command of Yugoslavia's army may reflect some dissent against Milosevic.
The Yugoslav leader met Thursday with Ibrahim Rugova, Kosovo's leading ethnic Albanian moderate politician, state television said. The two reportedly agreed on the need for a political solution to the crisis that led to NATO airstrikes, the report said.
Meanwhile, the emissary of Pope John Paul II, French Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran, left Thursday for a one-day visit to Belgrade for talks with Milosevic.
Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov failed to produce a breakthrough in a similar mission Tuesday.
Russian President Boris Yeltsin called Thursday for a meeting of the foreign ministers of the G-7 leading industrialized nations and Russia on halting the NATO attacks. But because six of the seven G-7 nations were participating in the NATO operation, it appeared unlikely they would agree to such a meeting.
NATO has said it would refuse to suspend airstrikes during Easter celebrations.
"This would be a blank check for Milosevic to continue the killing," said German Gen. Klaus Naumann, chairman of NATO's military committee.
The Easter weekend starts Friday in the Western Christian church. The Orthodox church, to which most Serb's belong, celebrates Easter a week later.
With hints from Western diplomats that NATO bombs and missiles could soon be raining down on the Yugoslav capital of Belgrade, NATO spokesman Jamie Shea repeated the alliance's insistence that Yugoslav security forces are bent on purging Kosovo of ethnic Albanians.
Shea said Yugoslav forces were destroying property deeds, marriage licenses, birth certificates and financial records.
However, Yugoslav authorities claim the refugees are fleeing NATO attacks.
In a clear warning to remaining Kosovo Liberation Army rebels, the Yugoslav army ordered all Kosovo Albanians to surrender weapons or face "rigorous and unmerciful measures," the private Beta news agency reported.