Many Belgrade residents grumble that the Serbs living outside the republic have dragged Serbia into an unwise conflict.

The whispers - reinforced earlier this week in interviews with well-placed officials in the regime of Slobodan Milosevic, with opposition leaders and with Belgrade residents - all follow a similar line of Balkan logic.

A1 Belgrade residents said the Yugoslav capital was undergoing heavy bombing early today, with the sound of explosions and anti-aircraft fire resounding throughout the city.

"We lack an honest opposition and a ruling party that will build a legal state," said Drago Djordjevic, 80, a Belgrade resident who said he refused to vote today.

In 1986, when Mr. Bojovic took over, the zoo was a ruin, Belgrade residents say.

Many Belgrade residents saw the plane fly over the city and observed that there were no lights active on the aircraft.

A Belgrade resident studying one of thousands of leaflets dropped on the city by NATO planes yesterday.

The police also prevented large groups of Belgrade residents from joining the protesters by cordoning of the entire center of the city.

Opposition parties, and some Belgrade residents, said the rallies were in bad taste given the severe losses the country suffered during the conflict.