SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) -- The U.S. Navy arrested nine protesters on a
                  bombing range Wednesday as they tried to interrupt NATO exercises on the
                  Puerto Rican island of Vieques.

                  The protesters were detained early Wednesday morning about three hours before
                  ships began firing shells at the range, Navy spokesman Jeff Gordon said. They
                  had used a small boat to slip past Coast Guard boats patrolling the range.

                  Gordon said the exercises were not affected.

                  Military police took the protesters to nearby Roosevelt Roads Naval Station,
                  where they were expected to be charged before a federal magistrate later
                  Wednesday.

                  The maneuvers by 50 ships and 31,000 soldiers from the United States, Canada,
                  France, Germany, Britain and Denmark is the largest in the U.S. territory in four
                  years. On Wednesday, 2,000 U.S. marines staged an amphibious landing on the
                  island.

                  The Navy has used two-thirds of the 20-by-4-mile (30-by-6-kilometer) for
                  exercises since the 1940s. The island's 9,400 civilians live between an eastern
                  training ground and a former weapons depot in the west.

                  Demonstrations against the military's presence in Vieques spread throughout
                  Puerto Rico in April 1999, when a U.S. Marine Corps jet dropped two
                  500-pound (227-kilogram) pounds off target, killing a civilian guard working on
                  the bombing range.

                  Protesters camped out on the bombing range for more than a year, preventing
                  maneuvers until U.S. marshals forcibly removed them in May.

                  Since then, hundreds of people have been arrested trying to enter the bombing
                  range to stop exercises.

                  President Bill Clinton has pledged that the Navy will leave Vieques by May 2003
                  if residents vote in a referendum to expel it. That vote is expected as early as
                  next year.

                  Copyright 2000 The Associated Press.