The troops will fly out to join their equipment when it arrives in about 10 days.The United States is also preparing to announce greatly increased military involvement in the Balkan conflict.Washington said it was planning to double the number of its warplanes in the region and was even broaching the call-up of reservists in response to an urgent request from the Nato Supreme Commander, General Wesley Clark, for more airpower. Pentagon sources said the US was on the verge of approving the dispatch of another 300 planes, bringing its total deployed in the region to almost 800, about 80 per cent of the total. The Pentagon said it would ask Congress to authorise up to $4bn in emergency funds to pay for the military operation in Kosovo.The aircraft would include F-15s and F-16s, more heavy bombers, and air- defence support aircraft, including the EA-6 Prowler, which can jam enemy radar.More refuelling tankers were also on the list. The Pentagon said: "The goal is to increase Nato's ability to attack Yugoslav army and security forces in Kosovo."The massive increase in US and British firepower presages round-the- clock bombing raids by Nato, in an all-out attempt to force President Milosevic into submission, but without risking Nato troops in combat on the ground.In meetings with Congressmen yesterday, the US President, Bill Clinton, was said still to be resisting calls for the deployment of combat troops on the ground in Kosovo.The escalation of the allied war effort is intended to counter Serbia's continuing systematic deportation of Kosovo's remaining Albanian population.Yesterday, days after the now forgotten "ceasefire" proclaimed by Belgrade, about 4,000 ethnic Albanians, almost all travelling in tractors and trailers, crossed into northern Albania after being violently forced from their homes by the Serb police.After crossing the frontier between midnight and dawn yesterday they were directed to fields on the edge of the northern border town of Kukes. Looking confused and dishevelled, they had reportedly been living in the mountains of Kosovo and some had apparently not eaten proper food for almost two weeks.Some of the refugees said they had witnessed the shooting of a young refugee woman who had resisted being singled out from the rest of her family by the Serbs and taken away for what she feared would be rape.The Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, said in London that he believed Albanian refugee women were being forced to endure "systematic rape" at a Serb army camp in Djakovica, near the Albanian border after refugees arriving in Albania told of sex attacks by soldiers.Mr Cook said the news of the camp had emerged from refugees who had made it across the border. "A number of aid workers have heard the same story from a number of women," he said.Comparing the Kosovo refugees' experience with the suffering of minorities at the hands of the Nazis in the Second World War, he said: "Nato was born in the aftermath of the defeat of fascism and genocide in Europe.

Nato will not now allow this century to end with a triumph of fascism and genocide.". FAILURES IN an NHS breast screening unit may have cost the lives of up to 11 women and put a further 74 at risk, an inquiry reported yesterday. The poor standard of care provided by the East Devon breast screening service led to cancers being missed in 24 women and the diagnosis delayed in a further 61, of whom 11 have already died. An independent disciplinary inquiry set up by the Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Trust found Dr John Brennan, the consultant radiologist who ran the unit based at the hospital, guilty yesterday of personal and professional misconduct and professional incompetence. He has been reported to the General Medical Council.Dr Brennan, who had been suspended on full pay since 1997, resigned last week after receiving his copy of the report.

In a statement he said he did not agree with its findings.The scandal first came tolight in 1997, prompting Frank Dobson, the Secretary of State for Health, to order a report from Sir Kenneth Calman, Chief Medical Officer at the time. This found 229 women out of 1,920 had been misdiagnosed.The Royal Devon and Exeter Trust set up its own disciplinary inquiry in June 1997 into the section of the East Devon Service that was run at the hospital by Dr Brennan. Professor Robin Wilson and a team of 15 radiologists reviewed the cases of 2,125 women who had been recalled for further checks between April 1995 and June 1997. The Royal Devon and Exeter Trust said yesterday it was now able for the first time to confirm the number of women whose cancers had been missed or whose diagnosis had been delayed.A total of 24 women received a new diagnosis of cancer after the review, and all were receiving appropriate care and treatment. A further 61, with cancer diagnosed between 1991 and 1997, were identified as having had a delayed diagnosis; 11 of these women have since died.Angela Pedder, the chief executive of the trust, said she wanted to reiterate the apology offered to the patients in 1997 "and reassure them that the lessons that needed to be learnt have been learnt".

An audit last year had shown that the unit was now working well. "It is important that women have confidence in the [service] and are reassured by the action we have taken," she said.An Exeter solicitor, Chris Over, said he was co-ordinating the claims of about 50 patients arising out of the failure of the screening service.. THE SERB army was accused yesterday of using gang rape as a key part of its campaign of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. Reports were emerging of women being separated fromcolumns of refugees to be raped by soldiers, while their families were either forced to watch or driven away at gunpoint. As the Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, told a news conference in London yesterday there was "systematic rape" in an army camp at Djakovica near the Albanian border, refugees arriving in Albania told of sex attacks by soldiers.Experts in Britain who have studied the effects of torture said that rape was used as a weapon of war to try to crush a tight-knit community.UN refugee agency officers cited one case: Serb soldiers singled out a 22-year-old woman as a group of refugees entered Albania, indicating that her family should proceed without her.