Violent protests rocked Serb-dominated northern Kosovo on Friday, as mobs chanting ''Kosovo is ours!'' hurled stones, bottles and firecrackers at UN police guarding a bridge that divides Serbs from ethnic Albanians.
The scenes evoked memories of the carnage unleashed by former Serb autocrat Slobodan Milosevic the last time Kosovo tried to break away from Serbia, which considers the territory its ancestral homeland.
There were disturbing signs the riots in Belgrade, Serbia, and in Mitrovica have the blessing of nationalists in the Serbian government. The government hopes somehow to undo the loss of the beloved province, the site of an epic battle between Serbs and Turks in 1389.
Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica's authorities have repeatedly vowed to reclaim the land, despite US and other Western recognition of Kosovo's statehood.
Some hard-line government ministers have praised the violent protests as ''legitimate'' - and in line with government policies of retaining control over Serb-populated areas.
In Washington, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said it was time for Serbs to accept that Kosovo is no longer theirs. She also suggested it was time to drop centuries of grievance and sentimentality in the Balkans.
Serbian President Boris Tadic called an emergency meeting of the National Security Council and said the rioting that engulfed the capital must ''never happen again.''
Kosovo's ethnic Albanian leaders declared independence from Serbia on Sunday. The province, which is 90 per cent ethnic Albanian, has not been under Serbia's control since 1999, when NATO launched airstrikes to halt a Serbian crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists. A UN mission has governed Kosovo since.
The US ambassador to Serbia demanded that authorities do more to guarantee the safety of foreign diplomatic missions after nationalists in Belgrade set fire to the US Embassy in riots on Thursday that left one dead and more than 150 injured.
The State Department ordered nonessential diplomats and the families of all American personnel at the embassy to leave Serbia after the attack.
The EU warned Serbia that the embassy attacks risked harming efforts to bring the Balkan nation closer to the EU.
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