In this story:

• Milosevic extends hostage release deadline
• Yugoslavs station tanks near captured soldiers
• U.N. Security Council ponders Kosovo crisis
• Related stories and sites

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (CNN) -- The killing of an important ethnic Albanian official threatens to escalate a dangerous standoff between President Slobodan Milosevic and Kosovo rebels who are holding eight Yugoslav soldiers.

Enver Maloku, head of the Kosovo Information Center, which reflects the views of Ibrahim Rugova, was shot outside his home in Pristina on Monday and died later at a hospital.

Rugova, a pacifist Kosovo Albanian leader, has been at odds with the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army.

Assassins targeted Maloku in November but he escaped unharmed. Like before, some have theorized that the attack was linked to the KLA, which took the soldiers hostage on Friday.

The KLA captured them after they strayed into territory held by the separatist group north of Pristina. On Monday Milosevic, through a senior official of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, warned that time was running out before a major crackdown.

In Switzerland, a rebel representative said the KLA might release some of the hostages by Tuesday, in exchange for some of the 2,100 ethnic Albanians held by the Serbs.

Knut Vollebaek, Norwegian foreign minister and chairman of the OSCE, warned after meeting Milosevic of major bloodshed in Kosovo unless the KLA releases the hostage soldiers immediately.

Milosevic extends hostage release deadline

"I asked for an extension of the time and I was given that by President Milosevic," said Vollebaek in the Yugoslav capital of Belgrade, refusing to specify the time limit. "I think that it is very important that the KLA knows that we are very short of time."

In a statement after his talks with Vollebaek, Milosevic called the kidnapping "a criminal act."

The detention of the eight is the latest challenge to the intermittent cease-fire in Kosovo, where guerrillas are fighting for the Albanian-majority province's independence from Serbia, the main republic in Yugoslavia.

More than 1,000 people have been killed in the nearly year-old conflict, including a reported five over the weekend. Among the latest was an ethnic Albanian teen-ager who died Saturday in a Serb shelling near a coal mining village where the Yugoslav soldiers are being held.

Yugoslav tanks stationed near captured soldiers

The head of the Yugoslav army, Gen. Dragoljub Ojdanic, arrived Monday in the provincial capital, Pristina, said an army statement, adding that forces have been put on a higher level of alert.

Yugoslav army tanks are stationed close to Stari Trg, where the Yugoslav soldiers have been held, poised for action if talks on their release fail.

The government has made no comment on rebel demands, but a Western diplomat close to the talks said a swap was possible.

OSCE representatives said the captives appeared to be well treated. And an OSCE tape of the hostages showed them relatively upbeat. One of the unidentified soldiers said their KLA captors had "behaved very correctly."

Under an October OSCE agreement, ethnic Albanians and Serbs were to begin negotiations on the future of Kosovo. But no direct talks have been held and the two sides show little sign of willingness to compromise despite months of shuttle diplomacy by U.S. envoy Christopher Hill.

U.N. Security Council ponders Kosovo crisis

The U.N. Security Council held initial consultations on Monday on a statement proposed by Russia demanding the immediate release of the eight hostage soldiers.

A council source said several members wanted the statement to deal with the overall situation in Kosovo. Further consultations were expected on Tuesday, council members said.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.