PRISTINA, Yugoslavia - UN police on Sunday arrested a well-known former Kosovo Albanian guerrilla commander, the latest of several detentions of ex-rebels this year, a spokesman for the NATO-led KFOR peacekeeping force said.

Rustem "Remi" Mustafa was a regional commander of the now disbanded Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) during the 1998-99 conflict against Serb forces, in which the KLA was effectively allied with NATO.

In a separate statement, the UN mission in the Yugoslav Province said a suspect whom it did not name had been arrested on suspicion of murder, torture and illegal detention. It said an international prosecutor in Kosovo had requested the arrest.

"The investigation is focused on evidence linking the suspect to the torture and murder of at least five illegally detained persons," the UN mission in Kosovo, UNMIK, said in a statement. It said it would be several months before a decision on any indictment was made.

KFOR spokesman Drew Anderson earlier said Remi was arrested in the provincial capital Pristina. He said the peacekeepers had provided support during the operation but he could not give details on why Remi was arrested.

"At approximately 4 P.M. (1400 GMT) this afternoon, Mr.

Rustem Mustafa was arrested in Pristina...All I know is that the arrest was conducted by UNMIK police," Anderson told Reuters.

The arrest of Remi, who was also a senior figure in a Western-inspired civil emergency force set up after the war, was the latest in a series of detentions of former guerrillas in recent months.

In June, UN police investigating ex-rebels for crimes committed soon after the war arrested four Kosovo Albanian men.

Two others surrendered to police soon after.

The force at the time said the investigation was focused on serious crimes committed against other ethnic Albanians in June 1999.

Western officials have long insisted they will crack down on ex-guerrillas guilty of crimes in Kosovo, even though many enjoy considerable power and are seen as heroes of a liberation war by members of the province's ethnic Albanian majority.

Kosovo has been under UN rule since NATO bombing drove out Serb forces in the summer of 1999 to end their harsh treatment of ethnic Albanians under ex-Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic, now standing trial at the UN War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague.

Remi was suspended in 2001 from his post in the Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC), set up after the war to provide a new role for guerrillas, after he appeared on a U.S. blacklist of people suspected of trying to destabilize the Balkans.

A KPC source confirmed to Reuters that Remi had been arrested and that his house had been searched but he did not know the reason.

Earlier this year, UN police arrested three other ex-guerrillas on suspicion of committing war crimes against Albanians. Those arrests sparked protests among the local population.