64 KOSOVO REFUGEES KILLED; WHO DID IT? NATO, SERBS TRADE CHARGES IN AFTERMATH.

Byline: Michael R. Gordon The New York Times

A column of civilians came under fire Wednesday and an unknown number were killed in southern Kosovo. The Yugoslav government and NATO exchanged bitter accusations over who carried out the deadly attacks.

Serb officials charged that NATO warplanes bombed two columns of Albanian refugees, killing 64. Describing what it claimed was one of the attacks, Serb television broadcast a chilling film showing mutilated bodies, destroyed tractors and stunned civilians. A Reuters photo from the scene showed civilian vehicles, armed soldiers and bodies in civilian clothing scattered along the road.

But at the end of a day of confused battlefield reports, all that was certain was that the civilians were killed by military fire.

NATO and the Pentagon acknowledged that NATO warplanes had attacked a military convoy in the same area but said they had not targeted civilians. They issued a series of contradictory statements through the day about the possibility of civilian casualties, ending with a Pentagon statement late Wednesday night saying only that the U.S. military did not know precisely what happened.

Earlier at a news conference here, the NATO commander, Gen. Wesley Clark, said he had evidence that it was the Serbs who shot the refugees after the alliance's pilots had attacked military vehicles near the town of Djakovica in southwest Kosovo.

But later in Washington, Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon said that Clark no longer believed that was true and did not have evidence to support his accusation.

The plight of the Albanian refugees in Kosovo has become one of the most politically charged aspects of the conflict in Yugoslavia. NATO has used the images of suffering refugees streaming out of Kosovo to muster public support for the bombing, while the Serbs have presented the refugees as victims of NATO bombing attacks. As the bombings continue, the number of civilian casualties has risen and is becoming more inflammatory.

On Monday, a NATO warplane twice attacked a train in Yugoslavia in an effort to knock out a bridge. NATO has acknowledged that the train was hit by mistake.

Wednesday's charges and countercharges raised the possibility that NATO pilots had mistakenly hit civilians or that the Serbs killed their own citizens so that they could show the carnage on television and blame the deaths on NATO.

NATO spokesmen said the alliance was still reviewing the combat film from the attack and completing its interview with the pilots.

NATO insisted Wednesday night, however, that it did not bomb columns of displaced Albanians. In a statement, the alliance said that its aircraft had carried out ``controlled attacks on military vehicles'' at about 3:30 p.m. local time near a highway bridge just east of Djakovica. The NATO planes were fired on by anti-aircraft artillery and hand-held surface-to-air missiles during their bombing runs.

At the Pentagon, Bacon said, ``We're quite sure that we only hit military vehicles and we will obviously review what happened there to find out if there was a problem.'' His statement appeared to leave open the possibility of civilian casualties.

Yugoslav officials told Western reporters in Belgrade on Wednesday that the alliance's warplanes had bombed columns of ethnic Albanian refugees in broad daylight - the very people NATO says it is trying to help.

The Serb-run Media Center in Pristina charged that ethnic Albanians were killed in several attacks in the southwest part of Kosovo near Djakovica. Serb television footage showed dead civilians lying near destroyed tractors and farm vehicles.

In his first account of what happened, Clark told the Bloomberg news service: ``There was a military convoy and a refugee convoy. We struck the Serb convoy, and we have very strong evidence that the Serbs then retaliated by attacking the column of refugees.''

Pentagon officials said there may have been a single column. According to this version, military vehicles were at the front and rear, with civilians in the middle of the convoy. The NATO planes were careful to strike the military vehicles at both ends of the column and broke off the attack when the pilots noted the civilians, Pentagon officials said.

Wednesday night, Bacon said a NATO warplane had attacked a military vehicle and that the pilot then broke off his attack when he saw there were civilian vehicles in the convoy. He would not say what sort of airplane was involved, what country it was from, what weapons were being used and whether the attack was at a low level or a high altitude.

The Pentagon said it has received reports of still another attack against a column of refugees, which was carried out by Serb helicopters and planes. It is based on reports that refugees provided to U.N. officials after crossing into Albania.

Bacon said that hundreds of woman and children were on the road from Prizren to Kukes when they came under fire from Serb aircraft. That attack, the Pentagon said, took place about 2 p.m. local time, about an hour and half before the attack near Djakovica.

Bacon said that U.N. authorities had provided those accounts. But the director of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Washington, Karen AbuZayd, said that her organization had received no such report by Wednesday evening.

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

PHOTO (1 -- color) A body lies in a crater near Djakovica, Kosovo, Wednesday, the site of the killing of 64 refugees, which Serbs blamed on NATO.

Associated Press

(2 -- color) A boy weeps Wednesday at the Kosovo site where refugees were slain by military fire.

Associated Press