No one was injured in the firefight near the village of Gorazdevac in the Pec district, which comes under the command of Italian units in the multinational NATO-led peacekeeping force, KFOR, they said.

KFOR and the U.N. mission have maintained order in Kosovo since NATO bombing drove Serbian forces out in June 1999 to end Belgrade's repression of the ethnic Albanian majority during an insurrection by separatist ethnic Albanian guerrillas.

There have been frequent attacks by ethnic Albanians on Serbs who stayed on in Kosovo after tens of thousands fled north into Serbia.

U.N. police spokesman Barry Fletcher told Reuters that police responded to a call for help from the area shortly after noon.

"Apparently someone was shooting at Serb men doing some agricultural work," he said. "The police responded with three vehicles and a total of eight officers. When they arrived they were fired upon and they had to take cover."

"They were being fired at from at least three different places and people who were shooting were too far away for the range of pistols. They couldn't move because of the shooting."

Fletcher said the police called KFOR for reinforcements who arrived quickly on the scene. "But the KFOR troops were also fired at and both UNMIK police and KFOR were trapped for at least two hours."

Fletcher said the Italians finally brought up more troops backed by two armored vehicles and a helicopter and the attackers were forced to flee. But paramilitary Caribinieri police units managed to arrest one man.

"He's not talking so we can't say who he is or his nationality," the spokesman said.

Two peacekeeping vehicles were damaged in the firefight.

A spokesman for KFOR Multinational Brigade West, based in Pec, confirmed the details of the incident.