By Fatos Bytyci and Daria Sito-Sucic
NORTH MITROVICA,&nbsp;Kosovo&nbsp;(Reuters) - Ethnic&nbsp;Serb&nbsp;gunmen&nbsp;in armoured vehicles stormed a village in north&nbsp;Kosovo&nbsp;on Sunday, battling&nbsp;police&nbsp;and barricading themselves in a&nbsp;monastery&nbsp;in a resurgence of violence in the restive north that killed&nbsp;four&nbsp;people.
The&nbsp;siege&nbsp;centred on a&nbsp;Serbian Orthodox&nbsp;monastery&nbsp;near the village of Banjska in the&nbsp;Serb-majority region where monks and pilgrims hid inside a temple as a shootout raged.
One&nbsp;police&nbsp;officer and three of the attackers died, according to authorities in&nbsp;Kosovo&nbsp;and&nbsp;Serbia.
Ethnic Albanians form the vast majority of the 1.8 million population of&nbsp;Kosovo, a former province of&nbsp;Serbia.
But some 50,000&nbsp;Serbs in the north have never accepted&nbsp;Kosovo's 2008 declaration of independence and still see Belgrade as their capital, more than two decades after a&nbsp;Kosovo&nbsp;Albanian guerrilla uprising against repressive&nbsp;Serbian rule.
A group of&nbsp;Kosovo&nbsp;Serbs positioned trucks on a bridge into the village, shooting at&nbsp;police&nbsp;who approached them, before the&nbsp;battle&nbsp;moved to the nearby&nbsp;monastery, according to accounts by both&nbsp;Kosovo&nbsp;police&nbsp;and&nbsp;Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic.
The&nbsp;gunmen&nbsp;had left the&nbsp;monastery&nbsp;by night, the&nbsp;Serbian Orthodox Church said, though it was unclear where they went.
Vucic said the action was a rebellion against&nbsp;Kosovo's Prime Minister Albin Kurti, who has refused to form an association of&nbsp;Serb&nbsp;municipalities in north&nbsp;Kosovo. "Serbia will never recognise independent&nbsp;Kosovo, you can kill us all," he said.
Two&nbsp;Serbs were seriously injured and a&nbsp;fourth among them may have died, Vucic said. He condemned the killing of the&nbsp;police&nbsp;officer and urged restraint from&nbsp;Kosovo&nbsp;Serbs.
The&nbsp;Serbian Orthodox Church's diocese of Raska-Prizren, which includes Banjska, said men in an armoured vehicle entered the&nbsp;monastery&nbsp;compound, forcing monks and visiting faithful to lock themselves inside the temple.
The&nbsp;Kosovo&nbsp;police&nbsp;later said they had entered the&nbsp;monastery&nbsp;and were checking for possible infiltrators among worshippers. Three of their personnel were also injured, as well as the fatality in their ranks,&nbsp;police&nbsp;said.
Kosovo's Interior Minister Xhelal Svecla said&nbsp;police&nbsp;found a large number of heavy weapons, explosives and uniforms "that were enough for hundreds of other attackers", indicating preparations for a massive assault.
INTERNATIONAL CONCERN
The head of the U.N. mission in&nbsp;Kosovo, Caroline Ziadeh, and European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell condemned the violence.
Borrell talked with both Kurti and Vucic, according to his office.
NATO troops, along with members of the EU&nbsp;police&nbsp;force EULEX and&nbsp;Kosovo&nbsp;police, could be seen patrolling the road leading to Banjska, according to a Reuters reporter nearby.
Kosovo&nbsp;border&nbsp;police&nbsp;closed two crossings with&nbsp;Serbia.
Serbs in north&nbsp;Kosovo&nbsp;have long demanded the implementation of a EU-brokered 2013 deal for the creation of an association of autonomous municipalities in their area.
EU-sponsored talks on normalising relations between&nbsp;Serbia and&nbsp;Kosovo&nbsp;stalled last week, with the bloc blaming Kurti for failing to set up the association.
Pristina sees the plan as a recipe for a mini-state within&nbsp;Kosovo, effectively partitioning the country along ethnic lines.
Serbia still formally deems&nbsp;Kosovo&nbsp;to be part of its territory, but denies suggestions of whipping up strife within its neighbour's borders. Belgrade accuses Pristina of trampling on the rights of minority&nbsp;Serbs.
Unrest intensified when ethnic Albanian mayors took office in north&nbsp;Kosovo&nbsp;after April elections the&nbsp;Serbs boycotted.
Clashes in May injured dozens of protesters and NATO alliance peacekeepers.
NATO retains 3,700 troops in&nbsp;Kosovo, the remainder of an original 50,000-strong force deployed in 1999.
The area of north&nbsp;Kosovo&nbsp;where&nbsp;Serbs form a majority is in important ways a virtual extension of&nbsp;Serbia. Local administration and public servants, teachers, doctors and big infrastructure projects are paid for by Belgrade.
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(Reporting by Fatos Bytyci; Writing by Daria Sito-Sucic; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Andrew Cawthorne)

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Serb gunmen battle police in Kosovo monastery siege; four dead