NATO strikes Yugoslavia

March 24, 1999: 2:44 p.m. ET

First wave of NATO-led attacks features cruise missiles

BELGRADE (CNNfn) - NATO launched a military strike against targets in Yugoslavia Wednesday, the first offensive action against a sovereign nation in NATO's 50-year history.
     The strikes began around 8 p.m. local time (2 p.m. ET) with a volley of cruise missile attacks.
     Explosions were heard around the Yugoslav capital of Belgrade and in Pristina, the provincial capital of Kosovo.
     Two orange explosions lit up the sky outside Belgrade in the direction of a military base. Pristina was plunged into darkness shortly afterward, and sporadic automatic weapons fire was heard across the city. The explosions came about 30 minutes after air raid sirens echoed throughout the city for the second time in the day.
     The attacks were launched after the Yugoslav government refused to sign on to an interim peace agreement for Kosovo.
     In a statement, President Clinton said NATO launched the attacks after it became clear there was no other way to resolve the crisis.
     "We and our NATO allies have taken this action only after extensive and repeated efforts to obtain a peaceful solution to the crisis in Kosovo," Clinton said. "But President Milosevic, who over the past decade started the terrible wars against Croatia and Bosnia, has again chosen aggression over peace.
     "He has violated the commitments that he, himself, made last fall to stop the brutal repression in Kosovo," Clinton added. "He has rejected the balanced and fair peace accords that our allies and partners, including Russia, proposed last month, a peace agreement that Kosovo's ethnic Albanians courageously accepted. Instead, his forces have intensified their attacks, burning down Kosovar Albanian villages and murdering civilians."
     The attacks appeared to have little effect on U.S. stock markets, with the Dow Jones industrial average trading at 9,644, down 27 points, almost the same level before the strikes were announced.
     For the latest on the attacks, turn to CNN.com