KOSOVSKA MITROVICA, Yugoslavia -- French peacekeepers fired tear gas and stun grenades Wednesday at angry Serbs as NATO took control of a key bridge in a first step toward uniting this ethnically divided city and reasserting international control in Kosovo's most unstable community.
At least 15 Serbs and an undetermined number of peacekeepers and journalists were injured in the melee, Serb sources and witnesses said. Two of the Serbs, including a mother of three, underwent foot amputations because of injuries suffered when stun grenades exploded near them, the chief surgeon at the Serb-controlled hospital, Dr. Radomir Jankovic, said.The peacekeeping operation, which began at dawn, was supposed to secure the area at the Serb-controlled north end of the bridge and to drive away Serb men who were stationed there to keep ethnic Albanians from crossing.
NATO officials described the operation as the first step in reuniting the Serb-controlled north of the city with the ethnic Albanian south bank of the Ibar River.
About 250 French peacekeepers backed by armored personnel carriers and Italian paramilitary police set up a security cordon from the bridge to the nearby, ethnically mixed Little Bosnia neighborhood on the north bank.
Troops in full riot gear ordered the four Serbs who had been guarding the north end of the bridge to leave, and they did so quietly.
Tensions mounted, however, when up to 300 Serbs, including many women, gathered around the security cordon 250 yards from the northern end of the bridge.
When French troops prevented a few Serbs from returning to their apartments in the control zone, the crowd surged forward, and the peacekeepers responded with tear gas and stun grenades.
After a meeting between Serb leaders and French officers, both sides pulled back a few yards -- NATO toward the bridge and the Serbs away from the soldiers. The move was aimed at reducing chances of further clashes, Serb leaders said.
Nevertheless, Serb leaders warned that the operation would damage relations between the NATO-led Kosovo Force, or KFOR, and the embattled Serb community.
"Today's events will seriously harm our relations with KFOR," community leader Oliver Ivanovic said. "If they insist on implementing the decision about the safety zone in Little Bosnia, they will face a complete civilian disobedience. We will not cooperate, we will not respect the curfew and everything else that goes with it. It will be civilian disobedience."
As the bridge was being secured, troops strung barbed wire along sidestreets and could be seen searching Serbs in the area.
"This is a brutal reaction by KFOR against peaceful protesters," Ivanovic said. He called the operation "an attempt to expel Serbs from here under the guise of so-called secured zones."
Once the access to Little Bosnia is secured, troops plan to take full control of the second, larger bridge that has been the scene of confrontation among Serbs, ethnic Albanians and peacekeepers since the effective division of the city, which began soon after NATO entered Kosovo in June.
Serbs oppose unification because they claim NATO cannot protect them against revenge attacks by the ethnic Albanian majority.
NATO plans to restrict access to the security zone around the bridge to those who have legal residences in the district. That would require Serb bridge guards who have apartments elsewhere in the city to leave.
Ethnic Albanians who used to live in the ethnically mixed neighborhood are afraid to return as long as the Serb guards remain. The Serbs, however, consider the guards their only reliable defense against revenge-seeking ethnic Albanians, who vastly outnumber Serbs.
Meanwhile, in Belgrade, Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic lashed out today at the U.N. mission in Kosovo, charging it sponsored ethnic Albanian extremists under orders from the United States.
"The U.N., which undertook an obligation to stabilize the situation in Kosovo by their presence there, have betrayed confidence," Milosevic was quoted as saying by the state-run Tanjug agency.
Thousands of ethnic Albanians were killed by Serb forces during Milosevic's 18-month crackdown against separatists in the Kosovo province. After NATO bombing forced the Serb troops to withdraw last spring, ethnic Albanians began attacking Serbs as revenge.