Kosovo President's Residence Surrounded By Police

PRISTINA (AP)--Local police surrounded the home of Kosovo's president and blocked surrounding roads, preventing anyone from entering the neighborhood, officials said Thursday.

Kosovo's police said the operation late Wednesday at President Ibrahim Rugova's home in a Pristina suburb was "a routine control," but declined to give details.

An official from Rugova's party, the Democratic League of Kosovo, told Kosovo's daily newspaper Express the operation was related to security concerns. Express cited other unnamed sources as saying the action had been planned.

An official with the U.N. administration said, however, that police had been responding to an apparent threat. The official declined to elaborate.

Rugova is at the forefront of ethnic Albanian demands for independence, while Serbs want the province to remain part of Serbia-Montenegro, a union that replaced Yugoslavia.

Rugova survived when a bomb, apparently hidden in a trash can, exploded last month as his convoy passed through the center of the provincial capital.