Demonstrators Battle Troops in Kosovo Clashes : Balkans: Divided town is in turmoil for second day as peacekeepers are attacked.

KOSOVSKA MITROVICA, Yugoslavia —  Hundreds of ethnic Albanians pelted French troops with bottles and rocks Friday in a second day of clashes here, and Italian riot police were called in to separate the demonstrators from the peacekeepers.

The skirmishes, in which French soldiers fired tear gas and percussion grenades into the ethnic Albanian crowd, marked a fresh flare-up of tensions in this troubled Kosovo town, where a river separates ethnic Albanians and Serbs.

The clashes began Thursday afternoon when crowds, hearing reports of two gunfights outside the town, gathered at the main bridge connecting the Serbian northern section of the town with the ethnic Albanian south.

French patrols sped to reinforce troops already guarding the bridge, keeping the two crowds apart, according to officials of the international Kosovo peacekeeping force, known as KFOR.

But while the soldiers were at the bridge, at least seven tents housing ethnic Albanians in the Serb-dominated section of the town were torched, further enraging demonstrators, said French spokesman Capt. Bertrand Bonneau.

Anti-Serb passions quickly became anti-French passions as ethnic Albanians grew angry over what they saw as the peacekeepers’ failure to protect fellow Albanians living in the Serbian sector.

At least 117 Albanians were injured in the ensuing skirmish with French soldiers Thursday, including 17 who were hospitalized, an ethnic Albanian doctor said. Albanian witnesses said many of the injuries occurred when French troops threw bottles and rocks back into the crowd.

French officials said nine French police officers and six soldiers were injured. Most of the soldiers suffered minor wounds when two grenades were thrown between soldiers and Serbian demonstrators.

Yugoslav media said 33 Serbs were injured in Thursday’s clashes.

In Friday’s skirmish, ethnic Albanian demonstrators threw rocks and bottles over the heads of the Italian police at French soldiers, who in return fired tear gas and percussion grenades into the crowd, injuring 28 people.

But by midafternoon, most clashes were between ethnic Albanians and Serbs. Albanian youths waded across the shallow Ibar River to throw rocks into a crowd of several hundred Serbs, who in turn pelted the ethnic Albanians with rocks. At least two gunshots were heard, though no one was reported injured by the gunfire.

Kosovska Mitrovica, located 20 miles northwest of the provincial capital, Pristina, in a Serb-dominated area, is one of the most serious flash points in Kosovo, a province of Yugoslavia’s dominant republic, Serbia. Ethnic Albanians have been demanding the right to return to their homes in the Serb-held section of the town, and the conflict has become a measure of the ethnic hatreds that exist in the province.

Rrahman Rama, a local commander for the ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army, said the burning down of the tents showed the French troops’ inability to protect Albanians in areas now dominated by Serbs--a key issue for the KLA in advance of a Sept. 19 deadline for the rebel force to demilitarize.

Bonneau, the French spokesman, said the skirmishes grew from ethnic Albanian impatience with their slow progress in becoming reestablished in the northern section of Kosovska Mitrovica.

The Italian police were called in, he said, because they are trained to deal with crowds, while the French soldiers are not.

“You cannot oblige people who do not want to live together to live together,” he said.