PRISTINA, Yugoslavia - U.N. police arrested four former ethnic Albanian rebels on Tuesday for crimes committed after the province's war, officials said.

In a simultaneous action in at least two towns in Kosovo, U.N. police arrested four men suspected of crimes against their fellow ethnic Albanians in June 1999, said Andrea Angeli, a spokesman for the U.N. mission in Kosovo.

"They are suspected of crimes that involved unlawful detention and serious assault," Angeli said. The victims were all ethnic Albanians and most of them remain missing, he added.

U.N. officials declined to reveal the exact nature of the alleged crimes or precisely where the incidents occurred. The U.N. mission also declined to reveal the names of the suspects.

However, the Kosovo Protection Corps, a civil emergency organization, identified the men as being senior members of the group in a statement that sharply criticized the U.N. police and their actions. The corps accused them of ill-treating the men.

The Kosovo Protection Corps is comprised of former members of the now disbanded Kosovo Liberation Army, the ethnic Albanian rebel group that fought Serb forces in Kosovo's 1998-1999 war.

The corps, which is commanded by former rebel leaders, was set up after NATO ( news - web sites)-led airstrikes in 1999 ended former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic ( news - web sites)'s crackdown on ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.