Roaring jet engines, air raid sirens and reverberating explosions in Belgrade Thursday night signaled yet another night in the swiftly intensifying air campaign against Yugoslavia.

As has become a nightly ritual, hundreds of Belgrade residents formed a human chain across the vital Brankov bridge spanning the Danube to prevent NATO jets from destroying it. Many demonstrators wore the paper targets which have become a standard form of protest.

Other residents took to the rooftops to watch the show. "I'm ... a member of the Rooftop Association," one resident jokingly told Reuters.

Kosovo Interactive Regions | Targets | Timeline

NATO says its air attacks are now operating 24 hours a day, and are succeeding in their mission to "systematically degrade and diminish" the Yugoslav military machine.

Nearly 400 missions were flown on Thursday alone.

NATO military spokesman Air Commodore David Wilby denied claims from the Yugoslavs that civilian areas had been targeted in the most recent attacks. "All targets were of military significance," he said.

Bomb damage

The alliance is targeting Yugoslav forces in Kosovo, reportedly knocking out tanks and other vehicles in hopes of halting alleged atrocities against ethnic Albanians in the province.

Authorities in Belgrade, meanwhile, have declared a unilateral ceasefire in Kosovo, and trumpet that it is now safe for the hundreds of thousands of Kosovo refugees to return to their homes.

"Smart" bomb homes in on its target

"The Yugoslav government once again calls on all citizens of Kosovo not to leave their country, to live in harmony and cooperation, and in that way to resist the bombs that kill regardless of nationality," Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic said in a statement.

Yugoslavia says the estimated 500,000 Kosovars who have fled the province were not forcibly expelled by Serb forces, as is claimed by NATO, but are fleeing air attacks.

NATO dismissed Belgrade's peace claim, insisting the attacks will continue until Yugoslavia signs a peace deal for the province, allows all the refugees to return to Kosovo and Serb forces withdraw from the territory.

The next round of attacks may be aimed at media outlets. French armed forces chief General Jean-Pierre Kelche said the alliance has decided to destroy Yugoslav television and radio facilities as their next priority.

"We consider it an extremely dangerous tool which is warping Serb opinion," said Gen. Kelche. "We are going to break the network of false information."

Washington also says it plans to set up a string of FM radio stations all round Yugoslavia to transmit the NATO point of view.