BELGRADE (AP) - Serbia’s former top police commander is being investigated for his role in the 1999 execution-style slaying of three Albanian-American fighters during the Kosovo conflict, an official said yesterday. An ongoing investigation into the deaths of brothers Illy, Mehmet and Agron Bytyqi - three US citizens of Kosovo Albanian origin - has expanded to include General Vlastimir Djordjevic, who was Serbia’s security chief when government forces battled ethnic Albanian separatists in the breakaway Kosovo province, prosecutor’s spokesman Bruno Vekaric said.

SARAJEVO (AP) - EU troops raided a house in northwest Bosnia yesterday, seizing a large number of illegal weapons and ammunition, officials said. Three men were arrested and charged. The weapons included a rocket launcher, land mines, grenades, pistols and 700 rounds of ammunition, said Jennifer Watson, spokeswoman for the European Union Force, EUFOR. Watson said that a caller who alerted the police to the weapons was most likely prompted by the death of a 7-year-old boy who found a hand grenade and triggered it while playing.

Israel should appear before an international war crimes tribunal for its deadly offensive against Lebanon, the head of the Turkish Parliament’s human rights committee said yesterday. “War crimes tribunals should act to punish Israel’s state terror and crimes against humanity,” Mehmet Elkatmis told reporters in Ankara. “Otherwise, it does not look like Israel will stop. It accepts no international agreement, nor human values,” he said. (AFP)

Hungary’s Foreign Minister Kinga Goncz yesterday met with Serbian leaders, who reiterated their country’s commitment to closer ties with the European Union. President Boris Tadic’s office said in a statement after he met Goncz that Serbia is “unambiguously determined to meet all obligations toward the (UN war crimes) court in The Hague (Netherlands) and thus continue toward European integration.” (AP)

Bulgarian veterinary health authorities yesterday reported a new outbreak of swine fever in the southeast of the country and are to slaughter about 85 pigs to prevent the spread of the disease. “An outbreak of swine fever was detected in a pig farm in Kamenar, near Burgas in southeastern Bulgaria. A total of 85 animals from the industrial farm and two nearby farms will be slaughtered,” the state veterinary service said. (AFP)

A senior US military official urged leaders in Kosovo yesterday to make the province a safe place for all its communities. General William Ward, deputy commander in the European command of the US forces, met with ethnic Albanian leaders involved in talks with Serbia’s officials over the future status of Kosovo to push them for progress in stabilizing the province. “We’re here to... encourage the good work to go on that assures that all the citizens of Kosovo understand that this is where they can be safe,” Ward said. (AP)