No motive found yet in shooting at Kosovo prison

PRISTINA, Serbia-Montenegro -- Investigators searched for evidence and interviewed eyewitnesses Sunday in an attempt to find out why a Jordanian U.N. police officer opened fire on U.S. correctional officers in Kosovo, killing two.\nThe Jordanian officer was also killed in the shootout Saturday at the U.N.-run prison in the northern town of Kosovska Mitrovica, Serbia-Montenegro.\nThe shooting was the latest shock for the U.N. mission in the province, which is still grappling with the fallout from violent clashes last month between ethnic Albanians and Serbs that killed 19 and injured more than 900 in Kosovska Mitrovica.\n"The shooting struck a huge blow at the very idea of peacekeeping," said Alex Anderson, the Kosovo project director of International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think-tank. It will "affect the perception of the peacekeepers among the population."\nIn Belgrade, the Serbian Orthodox Church said the shooting "proves that the U.N. does not control the situation."\nThe church had earlier criticized the U.N. mission for failing to protect Serbs and Serb churches during the recent riots in Kosovska Mitrovica.\nKosovo became a U.N. protectorate in 1999, after NATO launched a 78-day air war to stop former President Slobodan Milosevic from cracking down on ethnic Albanians seeking independence.\nThe 3,500-strong U.N. police force includes 450 U.S. officers, most of whom work for Dyncorp, a private company that trains police, corrections and judicial officers who work in places such as Kosovo and Iraq. The U.N. police force works alongside 6,000 local police officers.\nIt is still unclear what sparked the shooting between officers from the police and correctional units of the U.N. mission. Ten Americans and one Austrian were also injured in the violence.\nSunday, U.N. investigators went door-to-door in apartment buildings overlooking the prison compound, interviewing witnesses.\nOfficials denied rumors that a quarrel about the war in Iraq had sparked the gun battle.\n"As far as we know, there was no communication between the officer who fired and the group of victims," said Neeraj Singh, a U.N. spokesman.\nBut a U.S. police officer serving with the U.N. mission told The Associated Press the shooting was "clearly an attack against Americans." The officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, did not elaborate.\nThe gunbattle began as three U.N. vehicles carrying 21 U.S. correctional officers, two Turkish officers and one Austrian were leaving the prison, which was guarded by five Jordanian special police unit officers, officials said.\nThe correctional officers had arrived in Kosovo just 10 days earlier and were training at the prison.\nAt least one Jordanian officer, identified by Jordan's government as Ahmed Mustafa Ibrahim Ali, started firing at the convoy, said Stefan Feller, the head of the U.N. police in Kosovo.\nThe other officers returned fire, and in the ensuing 10-minute gunbattle, two female American officers and Ali were killed, he said.\nThe names of the dead Americans have not been released.\nThe four other Jordanian police officers at the prison were detained following the shooting, officials said, and authorities have requested their diplomatic immunity be lifted so they can be interrogated by investigators.\nOne seriously wounded U.S. officer, who has not been identified, was transported to neighboring Macedonia for brain surgery, said Maj. Chris Cole, a spokesman for the U.S. peacekeepers in Kosovo.\nThe other injured U.S. officers were being treated in Kosovo. The Austrian officer was to be flown home Sunday for treatment.\nJordan's government, in a statement carried by the Petra news agency, expressed regret for the incident and stressed it is following up on the investigation to uncover details of what had taken place.