NATO troops raid Serb barricade in Kosovo's north

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http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/09/30/uk-kosovo-tensions-idUKTRE78T2J820110930

(Reuters) - NATO peacekeepers in Kosovo (KFOR) destroyed a Serb barricade at a contested northern border crossing with Serbia on Friday, but the local Serbs soon set up another one a little further away.

The incident underlined the difficulty of normalising the border area, a key sticking point in Serbia's uneasy relationship with the majority ethnic Albanian province which declared independence in 2008 after NATO intervened in a war.

More than a dozen people were injured in clashes which broke out this week after peacekeepers tried to dismantle barricades set up by ethnic Serbs to prevent the Kosovo government extending its rule into the predominantly Serb border area.

On Friday, several dozen U.S. KFOR troops destroyed a gravel barricade, forcing local Serbs to pull back and extending the perimeter of a NATO base around the Jarinje border crossing to almost 400 meters (yards). There were no arrests or injuries.