Strange Bedfellows

The last time Serbian soldiers saw combat, they were being bombed out of Kosovo by U.S. missiles. Now they're set to fight alongside their former foes.

Following an offer from Prime Minister Zoran Zivkovic to send up to 1,000 troops to aid U.S. forces in Afghanistan or Iraq, a Serbian battalion is being readied for Kandahar, where it will hunt al-Qaeda terrorists and Taliban guerrillas.

The Serbs' choice of leader for the force, General Goran Radosavljevic, could be contro-versial. During the Kosovo war, he led a cluster of anti-guerrilla teams that, human-rights groups claim, committed atrocities against civilians. Human Rights Watch alleges they killed 41 ethnic Albanians in the village of Cuska in May 1999; Radosavljevic was never indicted. A New York court is also considering charges that he and other police officials are responsible for the execution of three Albanian-Americans.

A senior Serbian security official tells TIME the general, who denies the allegations, "insists that he command the unit." Serbian and Montenegrin officials visited U.S. military leaders last week to talk about participation in Afghanistan. Radosavljevic was not part of the delegation, but was represented by his deputy.