1.   But there seems no fighting the fundamental fact.

2.   If continued fighting seems inevitable, the battlefield is at least a little less crowded now.

3.   The Pentagon reported Serbian counterinsurgency operations against Kosovo separatist guerrillas but said the fighting seemed to have eased.

4.   U.S. officials have been trying to restart peace talks between Israel and Syria, and the fighting Monday seemed to complicate that effort.

5.   With both government forces and rebel Serbs losing confidence in the ability of U.N. peacekeepers to protect them, the fighting here seems likely to increase.

6.   But Russian forces continued to flow toward the region, and street fighting seemed certain to flare again.

7.   Overall, however, the fighting seemed less intense than in recent days.

8.   The fighting seems to have slowed a Taliban attempt to take Mazar-e-Sharif.

9.   The fighting itself seemed to center on a decades-old feud over a strip of farmland between the two communities.

10.   The fighting seemed to indicate that an overnight government bid to seize the rebel base has not been successful.