In Brief: Runaway South Korean solider who killed five surrounded

SEOUL, South Korea – A day after a tense shootout, troops today tightened a cordon around a runaway South Korean soldier who killed five comrades at an outpost near the border with North Korea.

An official at Seoul’s Defense Ministry said troops were still trying to persuade the sergeant, identified only by his surname Yim, to surrender.

Yim’s parents were brought to the forest about 6 miles from the border outpost to talk to him, according to the Defense Ministry official who asked not to be named, citing department rules.

One platoon leader was wounded when Yim fired Sunday on the military personnel closing in on him, the official said. Troops fired back.

Yim threw a grenade and then opened fire Saturday night with his standard issue K2 assault rifle at the outpost near the North Korean border in Gangwon province, east of Seoul, killing five fellow soldiers and wounding seven others, the military said.

Yim was scheduled to be discharged from the military in September.

Yim was designated a grade A protected soldier in April last year – one with a high risk of suicide attempt or inducing accidents.

All able-bodied South Korean men must serve about two years in the military under a conscription system aimed at countering aggression from North Korea.

Kosovo police use tear gas, batons to break up protest

MITROVICA, Kosovo – Kosovo police fired tear gas and used batons Sunday to disperse hundreds of ethnic Albanians upset because minority Serbs had reinforced a barricade in the center of the city of Mitrovica.

At least seven police officers were injured and five cars set ablaze by protesters, police spokesman Avni Zahiti said.

Protesters had tried to break through police lines to reach the main bridge over the river that divides the city between the southern ethnic Albanian district and the predominantly Serb north.

Zahiti said protesters were throwing bricks and rocks at the police.

The local police then called for assistance from the NATO-led peacekeeping force to contain the crowd, said Lt. Col. John Cogbill of Richmond, Virginia, and U.S. armored vehicles blocked access to the bridge. The alliance leads a 5,000-strong peacekeeping force in Kosovo.

The violence comes just days after Serbs reinforced an earthen barrier set up to block ethnic Albanians from crossing the bridge. Kosovo leaders quickly condemned the Serbs for a move seen as an attempt to deepen the division of Kosovo along ethnic lines.