Emotional words rang out: ``You were defending our territory. Kosovo is proud of you. I swear we won't ever stop fighting.''

Then six rebels carried the flag-covered coffin to a freshly dug grave, and three short bursts of gunfire sounded as they lowered it by rope into the ground. That was it. No weeping relatives, no personal touches, just a brief ceremony Thursday amid the picturesque mountains separating the slain Kosovo Liberation Army fighter from his homeland a few km away. Such funerals have been common this week in Bajram Curri, a decrepit northern Albanian city near a border region where the KLA is fighting Yugoslav and Serb forces in Kosovo to keep open a traditional supply line.

Zaim Rana, 22, was the ninth KLA guerrilla laid to rest since Sunday. Four more rebels killed Wednesday and Thursday in the border conflict lay in the hospitalmorgue. The 13 dead and 34 wounded so far are a heavy toll on the ethnic Albanian guerrillas, who have been pushed into the southwest corner of Kosovo by Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's drive to eradicate them from the Serbian province. On Thursday, artillery explosions echoed through the border mountains, but not as frequently as the previous day. Pier Gonggrijp, head of the Bajram Curri office of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, said several Albanian villages were targeted from across the border, and that shelling continued into the night.

With Nato bombing the Yugoslav forces in Kosovo, the KLA has recruited and press-ganged to bolster its ranks for what could become all-out warfare. But the rebels cannot take on the superior Yugoslav firepower and training, as illustrated by the casualty toll from this week's fighting in the Kosare border region. Known for internal divisions and a lack of leadership, the KLA appears to be struggling to handle its predicament. Journalistswho have covered the guerrillas for more than a year cannot get access to KLA camps or comments from rebel officers.

At a KLA camp in Babine, between Bajram Curri and the border, scores of rebels received equipment and took part in field training as journalists watched from outside the barbed-wire fence. Armed guards made clear that taking photos was prohibited. Crates of ammunition were stacked in an open hangar, where amounted machine gun was getting checked and oiled. Trucks and other vehicles arrived and departed a few times, indicating the camp was a staging area for the border supply runs. It was impossible to get confirmation -- an expected statement by the camp commander never came. Backed up into the border mountains and Albania, the KLA says it sends patrols into Kosovo to check on refugees living in the wild and monitor the movement of Yugoslav forces, according to Gonggrijp, the OSCE official. Some of the wounded guerrillas in the Bajram Curri hospital said they were helping Albanians in bordervillages flee the Serb shelling when they were hit by shrapnel or shot by Serb snipers. Others said they were hurt in the fighting in the Kosare area. They were the only KLA members speaking publicly.