KARACHI: The recent anti-Muslim riots in India have, on the one hand, created a sense of vulnerability among the Indian Muslims and, on the other, given a serious thought to the Muslims outside India.

The incidents of atrocities against Muslims are not a three or four year old phenomenon. Rather, it is an eighty year old misfortune. This analytical report of Dharb-i-Mu'min attempts to take a review of history of these riots.

Behind these riots is the philosophy expounded by Dr, Monche, a bigoted Hindu pundit, which says that Hindustan should be a solely Hindu country. To materialize the cruel philosophy, the Hindus launched a movement for the first time in 1923 to make India a Hindu state. The movement called "Sanghtan" was aimed at enforcing the Hindu culture in Hindustan.

Only a couple of years had passed since the movement started pursuing its horrible goals, when a new organization "Rashtria Sewak Sangh" (RSS) - led by Dr Shiama Makarji -came into being in 1925. The

organization had three objectives. One, make India a Hindu state. Two, give constitutional protection to cow, and give death penalty to Muslims slaughtering the cow. Three, make India a nuclear power.

Another point to the agenda was added when the RSS gave birth to Bhartia Janta Party (BJP) in 1980. The fourth point said that court decisions regarding Muslims be made according to Hindu laws.

The BJP, publicizing the 1923 philosophy with even greater zeal, declared openly its enmity towards Muslims in 1991, and the very next year demolished the historical Babri Mosque in Ayodhya, and declared to construct a Ram Temple at its side. The following years saw an anti-Muslim atmosphere throughout the country.

In the 1992 elections, the BJP won 161 seats, but its leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee could get the vote of confidence. Just two years later, the

progeny of Dr Monje once again captured the seat of power in India.

Implementing the third point of the agenda, the Hindu government tested

nuclear devices in 1998 at Pokhran, and enforcing the fourth point, marriage of Muslim girls with Hindu boys was encouraged with protection and legal cover. Number of troops was increased in Kashmir, and Defense budget was immensely increased.

From Dr. Monje to Vajpayee, every Hindu leader tried to entrench the doctrine that the Indian land can never become a haven of peace until the Muslims were eliminated from the country land.

In December 2001, India started unwarranted military deployments along Pakistan's border. A war tax was levied at a public level to meet the additional military expenditure. On Jan 25, in a bid to "prove" its military domination, India tested Prithvi missile, which can carry nuclear warheads to 700 kilo meters. Just four days later, the Hindu Banya redisplayed its war frenzy by testing Tirshol missile on Jan 29. The poverty-stricken Indian

masses disapproved the BJP government's actions by rejecting outright the fanatic party in the recent state elections.

Bangladeshis protest over Gujarat anti Muslim riot

DHAKA: Bangladesh police used batons to disperse nearly 5,000 Muslims who burned an Indian flag and chanted slogans during a street protest against anti-Muslim riots in India, witnesses said.

They said the police stopped the protesters from marching on the Indian High Commission in the capital, but made no arrests.

Authorities had earlier deployed hundreds of policemen to prevent any violence in the wake of the religious clashes in India. The death toll from India's worst anti-Muslim violence in a decade has risen to officially 700 and may increase further as more bodies are recovered.

The Gujarat violence was sparked when Hindu militants abducted a

Muslim girl on Godhra railway station and "abused an elderly Muslim. Consequently charged by these incidents, Muslim mobs set ablaze the train over a week ago, killing dozens of Hindus. The train was traveling from the northern town of Ayodhya, where Hindu militants have been rallying to build a temple at the site of a 16th century mosque razed in 1992.

"Stop killing of Muslims in India and help avoid triggering a backlash in Bangladesh," said a protest leader from Islamic Constitution Movement. Bangladesh tightened security around Hindu temples and asked police to protect the minority Hindu community from any spill over of violence.

Nearly 10 percent of Bangladesh's 130 million people are Hindus, but the overwhelming majority are Muslim.

KARACHI: The United States, world's lone super power and leading interferer in internal affairs of nearly every country of the globe, only because of its state-of-art surveillance satellite system and modern weaponry.

Among 85 of the country's substantial financial institutions, executives of the 52 institutions belong to the Jewish community, which means 60 per cent of the American resources worldwide are concentrated in Jewish hands.

From NASA to World Bank, Wall Street to Microsoft Corporation, Jews benefit from an indefinite hegemony on the American media including print and electronic.

According to a report compiled by Dharb-i-Mu'min. Jewish domination on the National Aviation and Space Agency (NASA), an agency that controls the planet's communication and information networks is no more a secret.

The World Bank is a symbol of capitalism and globalism that plays with financial obscurities of every third world country. The president of this influential financial institution is a Jew.

Wall Street is the key financial market of the United States, where 70 per cent of the world's shares business in traded. The Executive President George Soares belongs to the Jewish community. Many financial pundits held this market responsible for the worst financial crisis in 1997 when stock markets in the South East Asia and Japan fumbled and Indonesia got bankrupt.

Microsoft maintains an unchallenged monopoly on world's 90% computer technologies and information hubs. Majority of the board-of-directors are American jews.

Like these, many of the other US media giants are also working for Jewish objectives with executives from the same community. One of these leading firms earns a hefty annual profit of nearly $26 billion. Michael Eisener, chief executive of this firm is not any other but a Jew.

America's most influential and widely circulated newspaper, the New York Times, with a circulation of 9 million newspapers daily, belongs to a radical Zionist, Arthur Brussels.

All these Jewish-controlled institutions have an exceptional control on America's highest authority, the White House. "White House is something like remote control to

Afghanistan and Israel, consequently, proclaimed its ruthless operations against the innocent Palestinian Muslims as part of the 'war against terrorists and their allies'.

If, we accept for a while that Muslims were the real perpetrators of the attacks on Washington and New York, the question rises that can they agree to risk theii rights economies and liberties for a considerably insignificant US loss?

These incidents, on one hand have brought destruction upon Muslims, and on the other hand fuelled hatred and condemnation for Bush administration worldwide. Effects of these passions have forced Bush and his administration to sleep in heavily guarded bunkers, who once played football in open parks.

GAZA: At least 43 Zionists were killed and more than 250 wounded in reprisal attacks launched by Palestinian Mujahideen this week in occupied Palestine.

A Palestinian suicide bomber walked into a Jerusalem cafe located in the city's Jewish illegal settlement on Sunday night and blew himself up, killing at least 15 people and wounding over 60, 10 very seriously.

Two hours earlier from this attack, three people were killed and some 50 wounded - several of them seriously -when two Palestinian Mujahideen opened fire with automatic rifles and hurled grenades into a hotel lobby and shot at passersby in Netanya.

Both the Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade and Hamas, claimed responsibility for the attacks.

The bomber walked into the cafe, located 100 meters away from the prime minister's residence, and detonated a powerful explosive charge that completely gutted the restaurant. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was not home at the time of the explosion. The cafe was teeming with dozens of people at the time of the attack.

Sixty-two people were brought to hospitals following the Jerusalem bombing.

Earlier in the evening, over 300 agitated Israelis held a demonstration at the nearby Kikar Tzarfat, calling for a withdrawal from the territories and an end to savagery in Palestinian areas.

The Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade claimed responsibility for the attack in Netanya. The Mujahideen struck where a party for a bridegroom had been taking place. The gunmen opened fire at them and them entered the hotel lobby, shooting and hurling grenades before turning away to find other targets. Reports said border policemen failed to shoot or capture the assailants in the ensuing chase and firefight.

Despite unprecedented security measures and alarms, a valiant suicide bomber succeeded in entering a hotel complex in West Bank town of Ariel on Sunday, wounding 20 Israelis, including two soldiers.

Both Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine later claimed responsibility and identified the Fidayeen as Shadi Nasar, 24, from the village of Madania, southwest of Nablus.

The bomb went off as many residents were attending the funeral of ten Israeli soldiers killed by a sniper attack at a roadblock near Ofra settlement on Sunday.

In a separate incident, a Palestinian Mujahid on Thursday entered the pre-military training academy in Atzmona and liquidated at least eight Zionist recruits. All were 18 years old.

Twenty others were also wounded, when a Hamas Mujahid Muhammad Farhan, 17, of Jabalya entered the illegal Gush Katif Jewish community, opening fire and throwing hand grenades at the school and nearby houses.

Expressing his utmost exhilaration, martyred Farhan's father told Arabic news services on Friday that he hopes all his sons commit similar heroic acts, and that all Palestinian parents should teach their children to do the same and submit their lives to their Creator and Sustainer, who has promised them Jannah (paradise).

In a separate incident, a Mujahid posing as a Palestinian worker at the entrance to the hothouses in Netzarim shot dead an Israeli soldier in the head at point-blank range.

The al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade claimed responsibility for the attack, and identified the Mujahid as Muhammad Katawi, 21.

Also on Sunday, an Israeli officer was run over by a jeep on Saturday night when he was mistaken for a Palestinian. Palestinian freedom fighters had fired at the officer's car. Israeli troops in a nearby patrolling jeep spotted him and thought he was the attacker and ran him over.

The Mujahid who launched Sunday's attack attempted to pose as a laborer, reports said.

Shots were fired at Israeli patrols north of Bethlehem in occupied West Bank, at brutal Israeli roadblocks near Kalandia, and at Zionist patrols north in other parts of West Bank.

OCCUPIED al-QUDS: A Zionist military historian has brazenly called for a partial genocide against the Palestinians, saying war crimes could be forgiven if carried out quickly and successfully, .reported Islamic Association for Palestine (1AP) in its online edition.

In an interview with the Hebrew weekly "Yerushhalyim" published on March 1 and republished by the mainstream Hebrew press this week, Professor Martin Van Creveld, argued that the Israeli army would have to kill tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians in order "to restore the balance of deterrence between us and them."

Asked if he would favor bombarding Palestinian cities and causing thousands of deaths among civilians, Creveld answered positively, reported IAP. "Yes, as much as is needed in order that there will not be a need to repeat it, so that they won't tail us during the time of the withdrawal. We have to strike so hard that there won't be a need for a second

strike. Perhaps 5000, or 10,000 killed won't be enough and then we will have to kill more."

Creveld, who, was introduced as a renowned military historian, said mass killing would have to be done so quickly and so strongly that until the world understood what was happening the matter would be over." He admitted that this would be a crime, adding that being right or wrong wouldn't play a part in this matter.

"What is involved is a massive crime, but whoever isn't willing to commit crimes in order to save his country shouldn't engage in statesmanship, it is better that there be one massive crime after which we will exit and lock the gate behind us."

The Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP) is a not-for-profit, public-awareness, educational, political, social, and civic, national grassroots organization dedicated to advancing a just, comprehensive, and eternal solution to the cause of Palestine and suffrages of the Palestinians. The IAP is open to all

men, women, and youth that agree with the lAP's goals and principles. Since its founding in 1981, the IAP has grown into the largest Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian American grassroots organization dedicated to the cause of Palestine with tens of regional and local chapters, representatives, and' offices around the country.

Meanwhile asked if he would be worried about international reactions and the possibility that the perpetrators would be tried before an international court as war criminals, Creveld said the world would forgive Israel if the killing was done effectively and successfully. "People forgive for one crime on the condition that it is over. They forgive if it is quick and smooth, and particularly if it succeeds. If it doesn't succeed, everything is lost."

The Zionist professor, who ironically described himself as a "pacifist," said he presented his plan to Israeli decision-makers and that he received an answer saying that "the right people read it."

RIYADH: Rejecting the trend that links Islam with terrorism, Dr. "Abdullah Jasiby, chairman of the executive council of the Federation of Islamic Universities, stated here last Friday that the council will not discuss the issue of changing the syllabuses of Islamic educational institutions, as demanded by the United States, reported a leading English news paper of Saudi Arabia.

"We totally reject the move to link Islam with terrorism. It's not acceptable because it's the Muslims who are the victims of terrorism," Jasiby told reporters after the opening session of the meeting at Riyadh's Imam Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic University adding that the meeting is being held at a time when the Islamic world is facing many challegenges, said the Arab News.

Dr. "Abdul ^vAziz Al-Tuwaijri, director general of the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ISESCO), blasted the foreign media campaigns against Islamic universities.

"It's part of a fierce campaign by the enemies of Islam, exploiting the situation after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States," he added.

"During our meeting, the council will give a befitting reply to this false allegation and expose Israel's reign of terror against Muslims in Palestine," said Jasiby, who is also the rector of Azad University in Tehran.

He expressed his hope that the meeting would take suitable decisions on important topics, especially the, need to develop contacts between Islamic universities, the paper added.

US activists denounce horrors of 'War on Terrorism'

WASHINGTON: Family members of September 11 victims have formed a non-profit organization seeking effective alternatives to war as a response to the attacks and to support victims of the war in Afghanistan.

The new group, Peaceful Tomorrows, said in a statement Tuesday that it "favors the creation of an Afghan victims fund to match the outpouring of support for US victims."

Four family members have recently traveled to Afghanistan to meet with civilian victims of the subsequent ruthless bombing.

Rita Lasar lost her brother, Abe Zelmanowitz, in the World Trade Center when he stayed back with a quadriplegic friend. George W. Bush later eulogized him. She said today: "I found the answer to what a country looks like when it's been at war for 23 years, and the last part of the war was done in my brother's name."

Although Derrill Bodley lost his 20-year-old daughter on United Flight 93 he still said war meant more civilian victims. "When the bombing first started, I said to myself, I hope that there are no innocent victims," he said. "But it was a rather futile hope on my part because there's never been a perfect

bombing campaign."

Kelly Campbell, who lost her brother-in-law in the Pentagon, said the world should notice the plight of the poor Afghanis. "We see them as our sister families, people who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time," she said. "There are women who have to send their children out to beg for food, children who lost their limbs to cluster bombs."

Reports by non-governmental organizations and activists returning from field trips in Afghanistan came back with stories of poverty, need and helplessness and a determination to oppose the war fever in the US. Few US media outlets, however, paid attention to their reports.

According to Conscience International, a US-based humanitarian group, 87 percent of 'the people in Afghanistan are affected in some way by the continuing presence of unexploded land minfs, and that 200,000 people have lost a limb or been wounded by mines. Twenty-five to 35 persons are injured every day by mines, and one in 10 victims is a child.

"Recently in Afghanistan I saw children arrive screaming at the hospital, blinded and maimed by American cluster bombs," said James Jennings,

president of Conscience International.

Reports by UN and independent humanitarian aid agencies are only now beginning to reflect the stark life-and-death reality for some of the most vulnerable groups in Afghanistan, including 2.5 million Kuchi nomads, who have received very little food aid.

Last month in Heart, a Conscience International team reported that thousands of Kuch, newly-arrived at the giant Maslakh camp under worsening winter conditions, were without food and remain ineligible for WFP distribution. "They told us, 'Nobody has given us any food, and if we don't get food soon, we will die,'" he said.

Freelance journalist Erlich who has just returned from Afghanistan and Pakistan also drew a bleak picture of the country and of the US so-called "anti-terror mission".

"My. observations and interviews indicate that the US is going to be bogged down for a long time," he said. "There is no central government, the security situation is bad and the drug-running is back in full swing. So far the US is uninterested in doing anything about it. This situation is similar to the warlord fighting that destroyed Afghanistan prior to the rescue by the Taliban in the early to mid '90s."

David Potorti, who lost his brother in the World Trade Center attack, recently completed a peace walk from the Pentagon to New York and said he, like many other Americans, were increasingly against the war.

"The phrase 'Just War,' used in reference to the battle being waged in Afghanistan, is resonating, but not as a deep philosophical concept," he said. "War, to the increasing exclusion of everything else, is almost the only thing that America collectively cares about anymore.... We direct our attention and our resources into what we do best: war."

Twenty six killed in Algeria violence

ALGIERS: Algerian security forces killed 11 suspected members of an Islamic resistance group in a so-called "anti-terrorism" sweep, and 15 other people were found dead after two separate attacks in the troubled North African nation, news agencies reported.

The 11 killed were suspected members of the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), whose leader, Hassan Hattab, is on a list of people the United States claims are top "terrorists" with ties to Al-Qaida and wants dead or captured, newspaper reports said.

The GSPC is known to be active in eastern Algeria, where the primary targets for its attacks are civilian defense units and so-called 'patriots'.

They massacre was perpetrated by armed forces near Setif, 185 miles east of Algiers, and Djelfa, 170 miles southeast of the capital, the Algerian daily newspaper, El Khabar reported Tuesday.

Separately, 15 community guards were killed in two attacks in northern Algeria, reports said. The guards are civilians outfitted with arms by authorities.

On Monday night, armed assailants lobbed grenades and fired automatic weapons on a barracks in Oum-Toub, near the city of Skikda on the Mediterranean coast, 310 miles east of Algiers, the daily newspapers, Le Matin and Liberte reported Wednesday,

The attackers stole dozens of automatic weapons and set the guards' camp on fire, reports said. Twelve were killed and 30 escaped the assault, they said.

In the village of Si Mustapha, 30 miles east of Algiers, three unarmed community guards were ambushed as they walked down an alleyway, Le Matin said. The rival Armed Islamic Group (GIA), whose leader Antar Zouabri was killed by security forces on February 8, is active mainly in the south and west.

Both the GSPC and the GIA have rejected a reconciliation program set up by Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika in 1999 to end the country's civil war, which has claimed more than 150,000 lives since 1992. Violence has risen sharply since Bouteflika announced last week that legislative elections are to be held on May 30.

Since the beginning of this month, some 40 people, many of them civilians, have been killed in the chronic unrest, according to tolls established by the authorities and the press. The violence has claimed nearly 260 victims since the beginning of the year, the same sources said.

About 120,000 guerrillas, security forces and civilians have died since Islamic resistance organizations launched an insurgency after the army canceled 1992 legislative elections that the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) party was about to win.

BOSTON: After 11 months of secret negotiations, the Boston Archdiocese of the Catholic Church was poised last Tuesday to sign an agreement to pay $20 million to $30 million to 86 adults who say they were sexually abused by defrocked priest John J. Geoghan, according to parties close to the discussions, reported a paper

A proposed settlement comes on the eve of a scheduled deposition of Cardinal Bernard F. Law, the most senior Roman Catholic prelate in the United States. As a result of the agreement, Law will avoid a deposition in which he would have been asked questions about what church officials knew about paedophilia in the clerical ranks-and what they did or did not do about it, said the Los Angeles Times.

Law and the archdiocese here have been at the center of a storm over clerical sexual abuse that has swept across America since Geoghan was convicted in January of molesting a boy 10 years

From Trenton, N.J., to Tucson, Ariz., allegations have surfaced that dozens of parish priests abused hundreds of victims. Most priests have been removed from duty, and many face criminal charges.

In Boston alone, lawyers for the archdiocese have provided prosecutors with the names of more than 90 priests accused of sexual misconduct over at least 40 years.

Though the issue of paedophilia in the clergy is not new, the current crisis has reached new proportions. Based on information from the Geoghan case showing that church officials knew of the abuse and did not protect parishioners, devout Catholics across the country have expressed serious doubts about the spiritual backbone of their church, the priesthood.

Geoghan is serving a nine- to 10-year sentence following his January conviction. He faces additional criminal charges in two cases, added Los Angeles Times.

Macedonia turns four Muslims over to United States: report

WASHINGTON: Macedonia has handed over (o the United States four so-called 'terrorism' suspects arrested last month near the US ambassador's residence in Skopje, The Washington Post reported on Thursday. The two Jordanians and two Bosnians were recorded speaking of plans to "destroy the devil and the axis," said an unnamed senior Macedonian official, who said the phrase was a reference to the United

States, Britain and Germany. The message was intercepted before their arrest and Macedonian authorities also found computer disks and other material which was turned over to US agents, the daily said.

Macedonian Interior Minister Ljube Boskovski said Monday that at least two were Pakistani national who had fought in Afghanistan. In an interview with The Washington Post, Boskovski said there was a continuing terrorist threat in his country, and that there was intelligence that another group was planning to enter Macedonia to carry out attacks. He did not provide further details.

Macedonian authorities have been pressing Western governments to help them re-establish authority in large parts of the country under control of ethnic Albanian Mujahideen which they say could| become a haven for international terrorists.

OCCUPIED AL-QUDS: The Israeli newspapers have intensified their attacks on the government over the unbridled terror attacks against the Palestinian as the government appears to be helpless. A leading newspaper of Israel last week said that the prime minister convened the ministerial committee dubbed "the expanded kitchenette" for a barren discussion on whether once again to put the offices of the Palestinian Authority's chairman under siege, when it is clear to everyone that the decision will not make a bit of difference to the wave of terrorism sweeping across the country. The public has stopped waiting to count days of quiet when every hour brings another murderous attack and every news broadcast begins with the schedule of funerals.

Making mockery of its government "The Haaretz" newspaper in its articles said:/At times like this the public looks to its leaders, seeking explanations as to why the price is so heavy, what are the goals of the war, and most especially, when it will all be over. It is enormously frustrating that the prime minister does not have a reasonable answer to any of these questions. "We are in a difficult war with a ruthless and bloodthirsty enemy," the prime minister said last week. "We have to cause them casualties and victims, so they feel the heavy price. So they understand they won't gain a thing from terror. Until they understand, we won't conduct any negotiations. Only hit them." But meanwhile, the body count grows, for Israelis and Palestinians alike.

Sharon proposes the public be patient, and not lose hope, and promises again that Israel will win and that he will eventually bring security. These are

empty promises and the prime minister cannot continue to deceive the public., He wasted the credit the public extended to him when he was elected by not combining the use of military force with an effort to reach a political solution. Sharon is now painting a false portrait of an existential war of "no alternative" in which the one and only goal is to survive, the paper added.

That is deception, the paper noted. It is not the existence of Israel that is at stake, but the existence of the settlements, which Sharon has fostered and nurtured for a generation. This war -as IDF commanders, the heads of the security forces, and every reasonable person knows - has no military solution, and can't have a military solution. Only a political solution, based on an end to the occupation and the establishment of a state of Palestine alongside Israel, will be enough. But that political horizon now appears more distant than ever and Sharon refuses to open even'a narrow crack to hope, not for Palestinians, nor for Israelis.

The paper concluded saying that he (Sharon) shrugged off the Saudi initiative, and vehemently rejected a proposal by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak for a summit with Yasser Arafat Except for his futile proposal to establish buffer zones, Sharon has not generated a single political idea that could lead anywhere. Thus, relying on the mute support of the Labor Party's ministers, who chose to join his brutal government as a moderating force that would advance the political process, Sharon continues on his way. This is a shameful partnership, which removes every hope for an alternative, casting a dark shadow over the chance to bring wisdom and reason back to the region.

THE HAGUE: A witness at the war crimes trial of Slobodan Milosevic recounted on Thursday new tales of Serb savagery in Kosovo, including massacres, mutilations and a heap of bodies with their eyes poked out.

Sabit Kadriu, a teacher and human rights activist, also testified how troops forced ethnic Albanians on a graeling death march out of the Serbian-occupied province, gunning down 109 refugees as others trod on.

His grisly account came on the 16th day of the landmark trial of Milosevic, the former Yugoslav president charged with genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes for the Balkans carnage of the 1990s.

The stocky Kadriu, 41, described for the UN tribunal a murderous Serb offensive in the Cicavica mountain area of northwestern Kosovo in September 1998, six months before NATO launched its bombing campaign. He said Albanian villages in the region were surrounded and "subject to an unprecedented terror and violence. There were killings, people injured. There were many arrests, about 30." Speaking in a slow, calm voice, the Albanian Kosovar said most of the villages were devastated, with up to 90 percent of their houses burned. Local residents were subject to the worst atrocities, he said. In one village the bodies of 14 victims were piled up, including six or seven youths

with mutilated corpses.

"It was really terrible," Kadriu said. "Young people had their eyes struck out and they cut out parts of their bodies." Another group of four bodies was just as gruesome, he said: "Their throats had been slit. They had been hit on the head with a hammer. Their brains were scattered all about."

Kadriu, who worked for the Council for the Defense of Human Rights and Freedoms, also told of how Serb forces brushed off the pleas of a Kosovar Albanian woman to spare her husband and shot him in front of her.

Milosevic, who is defending himself, appeared unmoved by the testimony, leaning back in his chair with an arm casually draped over the back.

The Muslim Kadriu said his own village of Vucitirn was looted and .burned, and the residents chased out on March 28, 1999, four days after NATO began its airstrikes. Serb troops exulted as the local mosque went up in flames. "The Serbs were crying "Allah, Allah' all the time it was burning," he said, keeping his eyes firmly turned from Milosevic.

Kadriu described how he was herded into a convoy of 1,000 people headed toward me Albanian border on May 2, 1999, with Serb forces shooting anyone who got out of line. Others were gunned down for little reason, he said.

"The murders started about 9 o'clock in the evening

and continued until after midnight while the convoy kept moving and people kept getting shot," he said. "There were 109 people who got killed that night." The refugees were beaten, deprived of food for days, given water that made them sick, crowded by the dozens into small holding cells overnight, he said. The men were separated from the women. At one point, the witness said, the Serbs told the men: "We have orders to kill all of you. Your wives and your sisters, we have raped all of them." The prosecution is attempting to document a systematic pattern of Serb violence it says was used to deport some 800,000 Albanians from Kosovo. Prosecutors moved to bolster their case Thursday by producing documents from Kosovo authorities indicating knowledge of the deportation campaign, including one order to fatten 150 head of cattle for hungry Serb police.

Then Yugoslav president Milosevic is accused of engineering the ethnic conflicts in Kosovo, Bosnia and Croatia in a drive to carve out a Greater Serbia after the break-up of the former Yugoslavia in 1991.

The trial is expected to last two years, involving some 300 prosecution witnesses. The three-judge panel has expressed concern about falling behind schedule. Presiding Judge Richard May, who had already instructed Milosevic to keep his often-rambling cross-examinations more focused, told the prosecution on Thursday to keep its questioning short as well.