I avoid Serbs who might ask me for a light or wish to express their views on the vandalised British Council

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I avoid Serbs who might ask me for a light or wish to express their views on the vandalised British Council offices halfway down the street. There are plenty of pseudo-19th-century street lamps, though it's doubtful - as the Rough Guide to Yugoslavia points out - if the capital of Serbia ever truly looked like this.It's an odd sensation walking down this street, being British and speaking English in a city under nightly bombardment by Britain and America So I don't speak. After half an hour, you can see why Serb viewers might come to hate Muslims. Tolstoy has nothing on this. So some evenings, I just wander the Kneza Mihailova, the pedestrian precinct where the young - before the next night of bombing - make their idu ruku pod ruku, their arm-in-arm walks past the 19th- century buildings, sandblasted into beauty 15 years ago when Belgrade thought it might become a tourist resort. In last night's episode, two of Vuk's friends had their heads chopped off by the Turks, while a priest called Hadziruvin was slowly garrotted under the approving eye of the local vizier He took a minute to suffocate. NIGHTS FALL early in Belgrade and I am used to my little room with its worn red carpet and ghastly oil painting of a full-bosomed Serb mother, her arm round a child whose ear is weirdly poking from the top of his head. Now the government has ordered restaurants to close by 7pm, I squirrel myself away by the old wooden shutters and read Anna Karenina for the second time, or watch Belgrade television's interminable 15-year-old serial about Vuk Karadjic, the Serb epic poet and language reformer, and the First Serbian Revolt.

The men were named as: Colonel Milos Mandic, 252nd Armoured Brigade; Major General Vladimir Lazarevic, Pristina Corps; Colonel Mladen Cirkovic, 15th Armoured Brigade; Colonel Dragan Zivanovic, 125th Motorised Brigade; Colonel Krsman Jelic, 243rd Mechanised Brigade; Colonel Bozidar Delic, 549th Motorised Brigade; Colonel Radojko Stefanovic, 52nd Mixed Artillery Brigade; Colonel Milos Djosan, 52nd Light Air Defence Artillery-Rocket Regiment; Major Zeljko Pekovic, 52nd Military Police Battalion.. He said it would be based in a neighbouring country and give a means of communication that President Milosevic could not block.The US State Department named nine Serbian military officers, and warned them that they could be charged with war crimes. He also predicted that the Serbian President would now try to divide the Nato alliance, but insisted there were "no splits".Robin Cook, the Foreign Secretary, announced that Britain was to fund a new information network run by journalists who fled Kosovo. Milosevic must withdraw his forces from Kosovo, he must cease the policy of ethnic cleansing and he must allow an international force in to allow people to return to their homes and villages. "That must be the only set of terms on which Nato must settle this matter."Mr Blair played down the prospect of direct talks with President Milosevic. "This policy of ethnic cleansing must be seen to be defeated so that this type of appalling situation is not allowed to happen again," Mr Blair said "There must be no question of half measures ...

TONY BLAIR said last night that there would be "no compromise" with Slobodan Milosevic and that Nato would continue to bomb Yugoslavia until he conceded all of its demands. It is said he would now vote for ground troops and take the vast majority of Republicans into the lobby behind him.Even a recent call by William Odom, former head of the National Security Agency and respected military strategist, to "Take Belgrade" does not faze them.Much may have gone wrong in the Nato operation for Kosovo, but for Mr Clinton almost everything has gone right.. Aside from a small group of conservatives, led by Pat Buchanan, who have said from the outset that no US interests are at stake in Kosovo, the majority have twisted and turned through a series of misjudgements to the point where they are lined up, more or less, behind the toughest possible line on Mr Milosevic.Senator Don Nickles, a senior Republican who had reportedly said he would not support military action until "the Serbs started massacring people", was embarrassed into saying he was quoted out of context. Determination to "finish the job", if necessary with ground troops, has changed from hesitant acceptance that this might be the only option into a crescendo of support.The upshot is that Mr Clinton, who yesterday continued to insist through cabinet members that there were no plans to use grounds troops, could find himself contemplating a policy U-turn by popular - and congressional - acclaim.If this happens, he will have to thank the disarray on the right. This is an almost 30 per cent increase in Americans who would support deployment of US ground troops since air strikes began.