y of Malisevo in central-west Kosovo found little damage from fighting but smoke was seen rising from buildings on the horizon along the road into the area. Guerrillas seeking independence for Kosovo, an Albanian-majority province of Serbia, fled Malisevo on Tuesday in the face of Yugoslav federal and Serbian paramilitary police armoured columns waging a big offensive to retake rebel terrain. Kosovo Albanian sources quoted contacts at the scene then as saying tens of thousands of refugees were fleeing in panic as government forces surged in and set about shelling and burning nearby hamlets. The sources spoke of the risk of a „massacre“. Aside from a couple of gutted houses on Malisevo‘s fringe and a Yugoslav army armoured transporter wrecked from a mine explosion at the side of the road, there was little sign of serious fighting for the guerrillas‘ longtime stronghold. But there was no sign of local inhabitants, or of up to 20,000 refugees who had fled from a Serbian-Albanian battle for a nearby big town, Orahovac, 10 days ago. Asked whether civilians were urged not to flee as government forces enteredMalisevo, Serbian police said there was no time for this.