KEY POINTS:
"It's the biggest day for a million years!" declared an ecstatic Kosovar, celebrating his country's independence with tens of thousands of other ethnic Albanians in Pristina.
Fireworks exploded over the city, thousands of cars paraded through the streets, their horns blaring and their bonnets strung with Albanian flags, while men and women in traditional costume banged drums and danced and sang. Kosovo became the world's 193rd nation state.
For the Albanians who constitute 90 per cent of Kosovo's people, the declaration marked the end of generations of oppression by Serbs, who claim Kosovo as their historic homeland but for centuries have accounted for a minority of its population.
Yet for all the euphoria, there was a decorous, almost sombre edge to the festivities. Kosovo takes to the world stage with the less than unanimous backing of Europe and amid angry denunciations by Serbia and Russia.
Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci's declaration of independence was immediately followed by a statement from his Serb counterpart, Vojislav Kostunica, vowing that Serbia would never recognise it.
In Mitrovica, the main flashpoint of ethnic tensions during the Balkans' dark days, hand grenades were thrown, although no one was hurt.
Jubilant Kosovars shrugged off the threat. "We don't worry about Serbia," said businessman Mehmet Osmani, 49, celebrating with his brother.
"Serbia lost Kosovo totally in 1999. This is the last moment they can tell us what to do - now we are equal.
"The Serbs are nervous now but in time they will calm down. And that goes for Serbians living in Kosovo.
"No one will do them any harm."
Nine years after the Nato bombing campaign - sparked by fears that Slobodan Milosevic was planning ethnic cleansing against the Kosovars - the country's 39-year-old Prime Minister announced the long-awaited birth of the new country.
"This day has been long in coming. But ... from this moment on, Kosovo is proud, independent and free."
The former Marxist guerrilla fighter and political leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army showed scant emotion as he read out the declaration. He was watched by the new state's MPs and the family of late writer turned pacifist leader Ibrahim Rugova, who did more than anyone to foster Kosovo's sense of destiny.
But this was not the first time Kosovo has declared itself independent - Rugova announced it in 1992.
Seven miserable years followed during which the Government of Milosevic drove Albanians out of public life to keep the province in subjection. Kosovo has been straining at the leash ever since Serbia's defeat in the 1999 bombing campaign but was held back by the compulsion of its international backers to obtain international consensus for the move.
It never arrived.
After a year of intensive negotiations with both sides, the United Nations special envoy Martti Ahtisaari concluded that a compromise between Serbs and Kosovars was impossible, and instead recommended "independence supervised by the international community".
That was expected to become a reality last year until Russia changed its mind and vetoed the proposal in the UN Security Council. It has been nearly a year since Ahtisaari's report was delivered but the European Union, stiffened by the United States, has finally got up the courage to defy Moscow and Belgrade.
As Thaci underlined before Parliament, the challenges this tiny state faces are daunting. With the youngest population in Europe, 40 per cent unemployment and little in the way of industry or exports, it will have a hard job making its way in the world.
Serbia has long threatened to implement a "secret plan" of retaliation if Kosovo broke away, which could include cuts in energy exports and road blockades. Serbia has also threatened diplomatic and trade measures against states that recognise Kosovo's independence.
The Ahtisaari plan, now being implemented, includes measures designed to guarantee the security, dignity and local autonomy of Kosovo's Serbs, with much greater control at local levels and the protection of Serbian monasteries and other cultural relics.
Thaci's speech was filled with references to the multi-ethnic nature of the new state. But the Serb Government has instructed Kosovo's Serbians to boycott its institutions and has vowed to regain the province.
With the UN mission to be phased out and replaced by a 2000-strong European force of police, prosecutors and judges, relations with the Serbians are likely to worsen.
'KILL AND HANG THEM UNTIL THERE'S NO ALBANIANS LEFT'
Serbs opposing Kosovo's independence vented their anger and frustration on buildings belonging to the Western powers they accuse of carving the province from the heart of Serbia.
In Belgrade, a group of 2000 mainly young men converged on the US Embassy, where they ripped up paving stones, prised tiles off buildings and lobbed stones, bottles and firecrackers at the building and the 500-strong contingent of riot police guarding it.
Many chanted patriotic songs and shouted "Kosovo is the heart of Serbia", but the slogans from a few individuals were more ominous.
"Kill and hang them until there's no Albanians left," some protesters cried.
Several police officers were injured as they moved in to disperse the crowd.
In Mitrovica, the divided city in the Serbian enclave of Kosovo, three hand-grenades were hurled at buildings belonging to the European Union and the United Nations, which have largely backed the creation of Europe's newest nation.
No injuries were reported, but the incidents were a reminder of the potentially volatile times ahead in this notoriously troubled corner of the Balkans.
"The Albanians can celebrate all they want, but this stillborn baby of theirs will never be an independent country as long as we Serbs are here and alive," said Djordje Jovanovic, near one of the bridges spanning the river that divides the two communities in Mitrovica.
Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica was quick to brand the southern region a "false state" and call for peaceful protest rallies in the days ahead. "This unprecedented case of lawlessness was brought about by the destructive, brutal and immoral policies of force imposed by the US," he said in a television address to the nation minutes after Kosovo severed ties.
"Millions of Serbs already are thinking of the day of freedom which must come."
But the rhetoric from others, such as the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Kosovo, was decidedly more bellicose. "Serbia should buy state-of-the-art weapons from Russia and other countries and call on Russia to send volunteers and establish a military presence in Serbia," Bishop Artemije said.
International institutions, including Nato, which has 16,000 peacekeepers stationed in Kosovo, urged "maximum restraint and moderation".
And while a small minority caused trouble on certain streets in Belgrade, the sub-zero temperatures - combined with an acceptance of the inevitable - meant there was not the immediate widespread popular rage that some had feared.
"I know I won't be able ever to return to my home, and that is depressing," said a Serbian housewife who had previously fled Kosovo.
- INDEPENDENT
