In what will be the second biggest airlift in wartime history, officials said the United States would temporarily take in 20,000 refugees while Germany would accept 40,000, Turkey 20,000, Norway 6,000 and Greece and Canada 5,000 each. The US will shelter the refugees on the Pacific island of Guam or Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The record for the largest civilian airlift rests with India, which evacuated some 170,000 of its nationals from Jordan and Kuwait during the 1991 Gulf War.

Meanwhile, Washington also announced it is sending 24 Apache helicopter gunships and 18 missile launchers to Albania for use against tanks, armoured personnel carriers and other Yugoslav military targets in Kosovo. A force of 2,000 American soldiers would also be sent to guard the combatgroup dubbed Task Force Hawk, the Pentagon announced on Sunday.

Officials denied that the move was a precursor to a ground war, calling it a ``logical expansion'' of the air operation.

"It's to give us the type of tank-killing capability that the bad weather has denied us. It will give us the capability to get up closer and personal to the Yugoslav units in Kosovo, and to do a more effective job at eliminating or neutralising the forces on the ground,'' Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon said.

While the administration is still insisting strongly that it will not commit any ground troops to the operation, there is a rising tide of opinion among American lawmakers calling for NATO forces to march in and take over Kosovo.

There is also pressure on the administration to try and topple Milosevic himself by suggesting to other Yugoslavian leaders and people that the bombing will not stop until he is replaced.

American domestic law explicitly forbids assassination of foreign leaders, but in the past USforces have struck against targets believed to house leaders like Libya's Moamar Gaddafi and Iraq's Saddam Hussein.