The Balkans

By DOUGLAS WALLER/WASHINGTON

Move over, Iraq. Top White House aides have been meeting to prepare for the next international blowup they expect by March: Kosovo. Serbian President SLOBODAN MILOSEVIC halted his bloody crackdown of the rebellious province after NATO threatened to bomb him last October. But negotiations to reach a political settlement between Milosevic and the province's ethnic Albanians have stalled. U.S. diplomats managed to avert a major clash in the northern part of the province last Wednesday, when they persuaded Albanian guerrillas to free eight Serb army soldiers, but by the end of the week 45 ethnic Albanians were killed by Serb forces in the south. The White House fears the two sides will be in a full-scale war when the snows melt. "The hottest spot in the world this spring is going to be Kosovo," says a senior U.S. official.

--By Douglas Waller/Washington