By Fatos Bytyci

MITROVICA, Kosovo, Jan 9 (Reuters) - The commander of French peacekeepers in NATO warned on Friday that recent violence in the newly independent state's flashpoint city could spread across Kosovo, threatening a fragile peace.

Since Dec. 30 several people have been injured and cars and shops set on fire in ethnically motivated violence between Kosovo's Serbs and Albanians in the divided town of Mitrovica.

"This is urban violence. But it has political implications, meaning that it can mobilise people," said French General Michel Yakovleff. "That can lead to a major conflict."

Tension has been high between Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority and Serb minority since it declared independence from Serbia nearly a year ago, following NATO's 1999 bombing campaign that halted Serbian troops' killings and expulsions of civilians from the region.

Yakovleff said he had ordered his soldiers to show they were determined to stop groups committing violence. "My men will not be frightened, so if they (groups) are looking for a fight they will have a fight," he said.

There are about 15,000 NATO peacekeepers in Kosovo, and extra troops were sent to Mitrovica after the last violent incident on Jan. 3 when two explosions destroyed cars and damaged property.

The violence prompted local ethnic Serbs and Albanians to organise round-the-clock neighbourhood vigils.

On Friday Arif Gashi, an Albanian teenager, was on the street on a morning shift with two friends, warming his hands at a big fire in temperatures of minus 10 degrees Celsius.

"We are here to protect our families," he said.

Serb groups in a Serb neighbourhood just a few blocks away also have neighbourhood watches of their own.

"We are organized and have the capacity to protect ourselves even if we are attacked by 100,000 armed Albanians," said a young Serb who refused to be named.

Some 20,000 Serbs in the Serb-dominated north of Mitrovica refuse to accept Kosovo institutions and see Belgrade in Serbia as their capital.

Belgrade and the Serb minority of about 120,000 among two million Albanians in Kosovo reject Kosovo's secession from Serbia. (Additional reporting by Branislav Krsticd, editing by Ivana Sekularac and Tim Pearce)

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