(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-02-24 11:52

KOSOVSKA MITROVICA, Kosovo - Serbia's hard-line leaders on Saturday called the US "the main culprit" in the violence that has broken out since Kosovo declared independence.

Several thousand Serbs chanting "Kosovo is Serbia!" and "Russia, Vladimir Putin!" protested peacefully in the ethnically divided town of Kosovska Mitrovica, the sixth day of demonstrations against Kosovo's break with Serbia. Russia backs Serbia's fierce resistance to Kosovo's secession.

Kosovo Serb girls wave national flags during a protest in the ethnically divided town of Mitrovica. The European Union has withdrawn staff from a divided Kosovo city following violent protests by the Serb minority, an EU envoy said Saturday as Russia warned Kosovo's independence could increase terrorism. [Agencies]

On Thursday night, protesters in the Serbian capital Belgrade set fire to the US embassy, angered by Washington's recognition of Kosovo. The US and the European Union responded by demanding Serbia protect foreign embassies.

"The United States is the main culprit ... for all those violent acts," Serbia's Minister for Kosovo Slobodan Samardzic said in Belgrade.

Other Serbian leaders have called for calm after the riots. But an aide to hard-line Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica said any future violence also will be blamed on the US

"If the United States sticks to its present position that the fake state of Kosovo exists ... all responsibility in the future will be on the United States," Kostunica adviser Branislav Ristivojevic said in a statement.

The comments were an indication that Serbia is drifting further from the West and more toward ally Russia.

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The vast majority of Kosovo's population is ethnic Albanian and Serbs represent about 10 percent of the region's 2 million people.

Kosovo had formally remained a part of Serbia even though it has been administered by the U.N. and NATO since 1999, when NATO airstrikes ended former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic's crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists, which killed 10,000 people.

Kosovo's minority Serbs have staged protests daily since the territory's ethnic Albanian leadership proclaimed independence last Sunday. They have vented their anger by destroying U.N. and NATO property as well.

In the divided town of Kosovska Mitrovica in Serb-dominated northern Kosovo, a few protesters hurled firecrackers as U.N. police in riot gear formed a cordon across the main bridge separating the Serb and ethnic Albanian sides. Demonstrators waved Serbian and Russian flags and chanted in support of Moscow's refusal to recognize Kosovo's independence.

The protest was far less violent than one on Friday, when angry demonstrators hurled stones, glass bottles and firecrackers at U.N. forces protecting the bridge.

In the Serb enclave of Strpce in southern Kosovo, about 100 Serbs also marched peacefully Saturday. They carried Serbian flags to a nearby church, where they rang the bells to sound their disapproval of Kosovo's statehood. Some carried posters reading "Kosovo is Serbia" and "Kosovo will never be Albania."

"The whole nation is angry," said Sinisa Tasic, one of the organizers. "We are furious with the Americans. Wherever they go they create problems."

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