31 July 2005

Al Qaeda, the KLA in Kosovo, and the Trans-Balkan Pipeline

CENTRE FOR RESEARCH ON GLOBALIZATION (CANADA)

Al Qaeda, U.S. Oil Companies, and Central Asia
Excerpt of a forthcoming book entitled The Road to 9/11

by Peter Dale Scott, July 30, 2005

What is slowly emerging from Al Qaeda activities in Central Asia in the 1990s is the extent to which they involved both American oil companies and the U.S. government.[1] By now we know that the U.S.-protected movements of al Qaeda terrorists into regions like Afghanistan, Azerbaijan and Kosovo have served the interests of U.S. oil companies. In many cases they have also provided pretexts or opportunities for a U.S. military commitment and even troops to follow.

[...]

Al Qaeda, the KLA in Kosovo, and the Trans-Balkan Pipeline

The U.S., Al Qaeda and oil company interests converged again in Kosovo. Though the origins of the Kosovo tragedy were rooted in local enmities, oil became a prominent aspect of the outcome. There the al Qaeda-backed UCK or "Kosovo Liberation Army" (KLA) was directly supported and politically empowered by NATO, beginning in 1998.[47] But according to a source of Tim Judah, KLA representatives had already met with American, British, and Swiss intelligence agencies in 1996, and possibly "several years earlier."[48] This would presumably have been back when Arab Afghan members of the KLA, like Abdul-Wahid al-Qahtani, were fighting in Bosnia.[49]

Mainstream accounts of the Kosovo War are silent about the role of al Qaeda in training and financing the UCK/KLA, yet this fact has been recognized by experts and to my knowledge never contested by them. For example, James Bissett, former Canadian ambassador to Yugoslavia, said "Many members of the Kosovo Liberation Army were sent for training in terrorist camps in Afghanistan.. Milosevic is right. There is no question of their [al Qaeda's] participation in conflicts in the Balkans. It is very well documented."[50] In March 2002, Michael Steiner, the United Nations administrator in Kosovo, warned of "importing the Afghan danger to Europe" because several cells trained and financed by al-Qaeda remained in the region.[51]

As late as 1997 the UCK/KLA had been recognized by the U.S. as a terrorist group supported in part by the heroin traffic.[52] The Washington Times reported in 1999 that

The Kosovo Liberation Army, which the Clinton administration has embraced and some members of Congress want to arm as part of the NATO bombing campaign, is a terrorist organization that has financed much of its war effort with profits from the sale of heroin.[53]

Yet once again, as in Azerbaijan, these drug-financed Islamist jihadis received American assistance, this time from the U.S. Government.[54] At the time critics charged that US oil interests were interested in building a trans-Balkan pipeline with US Army protection; although initially ridiculed, these critics were eventually proven correct.[55] BBC News announced in December 2004 that a $1.2 billion pipeline, south of a huge new U.S. army base in Kosovo, has been given a go-ahead by the governments of Albania, Bulgaria, and Macedonia.[56] Meanwhile by 2000, according to DEA statistics, Afghan heroin accounted for almost 20 percent of the heroin seized in the United States -- nearly double the percentage taken four years earlier. Much of it is now distributed by Kosovar Albanians.[57]

The closeness of the UCK/KLA to al-Qaeda was acknowledged again in the western press, after Afghan-connected KLA guerrillas proceeded in 2001 to conduct guerrilla warfare in Macedonia. Press accounts included an Interpol report containing the allegation that one of bin Laden4s senior lieutenants was the commander of an elite UCK/KLA unit operating in Kosovo in 1999.[58] This was probably Mohammed al-Zawahiri. The American right wing, which opposed Clinton's actions in Kosovo, has transmitted reports "that the KLA's head of elite forces, Muhammed al-Zawahiri, was the brother of Ayman al-Zawahiri, the military commander for bin Laden's Al Qaeda."[59] Meanwhile Marcia Kurop in the Wall Street Journal has written that "The Egyptian surgeon turned terrorist leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri has operated terrorist training camps, weapons of mass destruction factories and money-laundering and drug-trading networks throughout Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Turkey and Bosnia."[60]

According to Yossef Bodansky, director of the U.S. Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare,

Bin Laden's Arab `Afghans' also have assumed a dominant role in training the Kosovo Liberation Army.[by mid-March 1999 the UCK included] many elements controlled and/or sponsored by the U.S., German, British, and Croatian intelligence services.[61]

The most flagrant and revealing evidence that as late as 2004 some U.S. bureaucratic sectors were still working with veterans of al Qaeda networks came in respect to Haiti:

In 2004 a USAID Report confirmed that "Training and management specialists of the Kosovo Protection Corps, a civilian response unit consisting primarily of former Kosovo Liberation Army members, have been brought to Haiti"[62]

Why would AID bring veterans of the Kosovo Liberation Army, "a major force in international organized crime, moving staggering amounts of narcotics,"[63] to train and manage the Haitian Army, an organization traditionally "corrupted by Colombian cocaine kingpins"?[64] Whatever the answer, it is hard to imagine that AID did not have drugs somehow in mind.

[...]

A survey of U.S. history since World War Two suggests that the United States power state has consistently used the resources of the global drug traffic to further its own ends, particularly with respect to oil, at the expense of the public order and well-being of the American public state.[71] For at least two decades, from Brzezinski's backing of Hekmatyar in 1979 to Bush's backing of the Afghan Northern Alliance in 2001, the United States has continued to draw on the resources of drug-trafficking Islamic jihadists who are or were associated at some point with Al Qaeda.

In the next chapter I shall argue that this alliance with al Qaeda terrorists against the United States public order underlies the conspiracy that made 9/11 possible. But we must also look at how the military-petroleum complex came to project long-term military budgets, in the order of a trillion dollars, that its advocates acknowledged that the American public state could not be persuaded easily to support...

In the absence, that is, of "some catastrophic and catalyzing event - like a new Pearl Harbor."[72]

Notes:

[1] Western governments and media apply the term "al Qaeda" to the whole "network of co-opted groups" who have at some point accepted leadership, training and financing from bin Laden (Jason Burke, Al-Qaeda: The True Story of Radical Islam [London: I.B. Tauris, 2004], 7-8). From a Muslim perceptive, the term "Al Qaeda" is clumsy, and has led to the targeting of a number of Islamist groups opposed to bin Laden's tactics. See Montasser al-Zayyat, The Road to Al-Qaeda: The Story of Bin Laden's Right-Hand Man [London: Pluto Press, 2004], 100, etc.)

[...]

[47] KLA representatives had met with American, British, and Swiss intelligence agencies in 1996, and possibly several years earlier (Tim Judah, Kosovo: War and Revenge [New Haven: Yale UP, 2002], 120).

[48] Tim Judah, Kosovo: War and Revenge (New Haven: Yale UP, 2002), 120.

[49] Evan F. Kohlmann, Al-Qaida's Jihad in Europe: The Afghan-Bosnian Network (Oxford and New York: Berg Publishers, 2004), 79. Al-Qahtani, who was killed by U.S. ordinance in Afghanistan in 2001, had previously fought in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Israel, Chechnya, and Kosovo.

[50] and an expert on the Balkans. `Milosevic is right. There is no question of their participation in conflicts in the Balkans. It is very well documented," (National Post, 3/15/02). Contrast e.g. Michael Ignatieff, Virtual War : Kosovo and Beyond (New York: Metropolitan/ Henry Holt, 2000), 13: "the KLA, at first a small band of poorly trained and amateurish gunmen." For the al Qaeda background to the UCK and its involvement in heroin-trafficking, see also Marcia Christoff Kurop, "Al Qaeda4s Balkan Links," Wall Street Journal Europe, 11/1/01; Montreal Gazette, 12/15/99.

[51] National Post, 3/15/02

[52] Scott, Drugs, Oil, and War, 29. "According to Michel Koutouzis, the DEA's website once contained a section detailing Kosovar trafficking, but a week before the U.S.-led bombings began, the section disappeared" (Peter Klebnikov, "Heroin Heroes," Mother Jones, January/February 2000, http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2000/01/heroin.html). Speaking in Kosovo in February 1998, Robert Gelbard, the U.S. special envoy to the region, said publicly that the KLA "is, without any questions, a terrorist group" (Judah, Kosovo: War and Revenge, 138).

[53] Washington Times, 5/3/99. Cf. San Francisco Chronicle, 5/5/99: "Officers of the Kosovo Liberation Army and their backers, according to law enforcement authorities in Western Europe and the United States, are a major force in international organized crime, moving staggering amounts of narcotics through an underworld network that reaches into the heart of Europe."

[54] See Lewis Mackenzie (former UN commander in Bosnia), "We Bombed the Wrong Side?" National Post, 4/6/04: "Those of us who warned that the West was being sucked in on the side of an extremist, militant, Kosovo-Albanian ndependence movement were dismissed as appeasers. The fact that the lead organization spearheading the fight for independence, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), was universally designated a terrorist organization and known to be receiving support from Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda was conveniently ignored..The Kosovar Albanians played us like a Stradivarius violin. We have subsidized and indirectly supported their violent campaign for an ethnically pure Kosovo. We have never blamed them for being the perpetrators of the violence in the early 1990s, and we continue to portray them as the designated victim today, in spite of evidence to the contrary. When they achieve independence with the help of our tax dollars combined with those of bin Laden and al-Qaeda, just consider the message of encouragement this sends to other terrorist-supported independence movements around the world." Cf. John Pilger, New Statesman, 12/13/04.

[55] George Monbiot, Guardian, 2/15/01.

[56] BBC News, 12/28/04. Those who charged that such a pipeline was projected were initially mocked but gradually vindicated (Guardian, 1/15/01; Scott, Drugs, Oil, and War, 34). See also Marjorie Cohn, "Nato Bombing of Kosovo: Humanitarian Intervention or Crime against Humanity?" International Journal for the Semiotics of Law, March 2002, 79-106.

[57] Klebnikov, "Heroin Heroes," Mother Jones, January/February 2000.

[58] Halifax Herald, 10/29/01, <
http://www.herald.ns.ca/stories/2001/10/29/f126.raw.html >. Cf. Yossef Bodansky, Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America [Roseville: Prima, 2001], 298: "In late 1998, despite the growing pressure from U.S. intelligence and its local allies.a new network made up of bin Laden's supporters was being established in Albania under the cover of various Muslim charity organizations..Bin Laden's Arab `Afghans' also have assumed a dominant role in training the Kosovo Liberation Army." Bodansky adds that by mid-March 1999 the UCK included "many elements controlled and/or sponsored by the U.S., German, British, and Croatian intelligence services.. In early April [1999] the UCK began actively cooperating with the NATO bombing--selecting and designating targets for NATO aircraft as well as escorting U.S. and British special forces detachments into Yugoslavia" (397-98). Cf. also Scott Taylor, "Bin Laden's Balkan Connections," http://www.realitymacedonia.org.mk/web/news_page.asp?nid=1186 ; San Francisco Chronicle, 10/4/01.

[59] Cliff Kincaid, "Remember Kosovo?" Accuracy in Media, Media Monitor, 12/28/04, http://www.aim.org/media_monitor/2393_0_2_0_C/ .|

[60] Wall Street Journal Europe, 11/1/01.

[61] Yossef Bodansky, Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America [Roseville: Prima, 2001], 298, 397-98ZZck.

[62] Anthony Fenton, "Kosovo Liberation Army helps establish `Protectorate' in Haiti," citing Flashpoints interview, 11/19/04, www.flashpoints.net ). Cf. Anthony Fenton, "Canada in Haiti: Humanitarian Extermination," CMAQ.net, 12/8/04; http://www.cmaq.net/fr/node.php?id=19240 .

[63] San Francisco Chronicle, 5/5/99.

[64] New York Times, 6/2/04.

[...]

[71] Scott, Drugs, Oil, and War, 1-105, 185-207.

[72] Project for the New American Century, "Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces, and Resources for a New Century," September 2000, p. 51 (63), http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf . See Chapter 10.

Calmy-Rey defends Swiss position on Kosovo

SWISS INFO, July 29, 2005 9:51 PM

On the eve of an official visit to Kosovo, the Swiss foreign minister has defended Switzerland's goal of achieving a form of independence for the province.

But in an interview with swissinfo, Micheline Calmy-Rey stressed that a decision on Kosovo's future status could only be taken with the support of the government in Belgrade.

Calmy-Rey's visit - which gets underway on Saturday - comes at a sensitive time for Swiss relations with Serbia and Montenegro.

Last month Serbian President Boris Tadic told the Swiss foreign minister in no uncertain terms that he was not open to discussion about independence for Kosovo.

Belgrade has also repeatedly called on Switzerland to remain neutral and not take a position on the province's future.

Kosovo officially remains part of Serbia and Montenegro, the union that replaced Yugoslavia. But it has been under United Nations and Nato administration since a 78-day Nato-led air war that halted a Serb crackdown on ethnic Albanians in 1999.

Before she returns to Switzerland on August 2, Calmy-Rey will celebrate Swiss National Day on Monday in the company of Swiss peacekeeping forces stationed in the province.

Swiss soldiers have been deployed as part of the multinational peacekeeping force in Kosovo since 1999.

swissinfo: What are you hoping to achieve during your visit to Kosovo?

Micheline Calmy-Rey: The purpose of my visit is to explain to the Kosovar authorities the Swiss point of view regarding the political future of Kosovo. I am also going to underline the importance of Swiss engagement in Kosovo - including financial and technical assistance - for stability and the promotion of peace.

I'd like to emphasise that Kosovo is a very important region for our country. Ten per cent of the population of Kosovo live in Switzerland. So Kosovo's interests are also ours, especially in terms of security.

Our position is clear-cut, unbiased and unequivocal.

swissinfo: Serbia has made it clear that it is unhappy with Switzerland's suggestion that Kosovo could move towards some form of independence. How are you going to make progress without Serbia and Montenegro's support?

M.C-R.: We will continue to communicate our position to both sides. And our position is clear-cut, unbiased and unequivocal. Our idea is that the evolution towards a form of formal independence must happen under close international monitoring as well as through negotiations with the authorities in Belgrade, upon whom this independence cannot be imposed.

On the other hand, our position on the achievement of [basic] standards in Kosovo remains unchanged. We will not give way to any compromise with regard to improvement of these standards, especially when it comes to the situation of minorities and security issues. A significant international presence [in the province] will continue to be necessary as long as these standards are not achieved. Switzerland is determined to pursue its commitment side by side with other members of the international community.

swissinfo: Serbian President Boris Tadic has said he will "never accept" an independent Kosovo and will do everything in his power to prevent secession. How do you go about convincing him otherwise?

M.C-R.: We will not push for a particular solution. All we are trying to do is convince both parties that the time has come to start a political dialogue at the highest level on the status question.

Our position on Kosovo is consistent with our general policy towards the Balkan countries.

swissinfo: Some parliamentarians in Bern have criticised your stance on Kosovo, saying it is a major foreign-policy shift and that as such it should be discussed by parliament. What is your response?

M.C-R.: [All I can say is that] our balanced position on Kosovo is consistent with our general policy towards the Balkan countries and was approved by the government last May.

swissinfo: By coming out with a clear line about the future status of Kosovo, are you not jeopardising Switzerland's role as a neutral facilitator?

M.C-R.: In accordance with our policy of neutrality, we have always taken unequivocal positions which are based on assessments of the interests of all parties.

We have clearly expressed that it is important to take into account two equally legitimate desires. Firstly, the right of minorities to live in safety, to have the same opportunities for economic development, to have the same access to social services and education, and to exercise the right to return. And secondly, the will of the majority of the population to exercise its right to self-determination.

swissinfo-interview: Ramsey Zarifeh

Kosovo council dissatisfied

Beta news agency, Belgrade, July 29, 2005 21:56

BELGRADE -- Friday - The Serbian government's Kosovo Council had adopted a document entitled "Standards for Kosovo - an evaluation of the level of implementation."

In a discussion held regarding the document, which was prepared by the Kosovo Coordination Center, many concrete facts where stated which confirm that the standards in Kosovo are still very far from fulfilled, especially when looking at basic human rights for non-Albanian communities and the creation of multi-ethnic environments, the government states.

The Kosovo Council also went over the initiative of Kosovo governor Soeren Jessen-Petersen, specifically the parts which discuss his pilot project for decentralization, which the council believes the Serbian community in Kosovo cannot accept. The council feels that this proposal does not give the Kosovo Serbs any minimal guarantees for bettering the position of the Serbian community; not even on the local level.

Swiss foreign minister to visit Kosovo

Associated Press, Jul 30, 2005 5:54 AM

PRISTINA, Serbia-Montenegro-Swiss foreign minister Micheline Calmy-Rey will begin a four-day tour to Kosovo Saturday and meet with her country's soldiers deployed in the disputed province as part of the NATO-led peacekeeping force.

During her visit, Calmy-Rey is set to hold discussions with Kosovo's president Ibrahim Rugova and other leaders in the province.

On Monday she will join some 220 Swiss soldiers stationed in Suva Reka, a southern Kosovo town, to celebrate the Swiss national day, said Jean-Philippe Jeannerat, the spokesman for the foreign ministry.

Kosovo is run like a de-facto U.N. protectorate and the Swiss soldiers are part of the 17,000-strong NATO-led peacekeeping force that have patrolled the province since 1999, when the alliance's bombing ended a Serb crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists.

The province remains disputed between its ethnic Albanian majority, which demands outright independence, and Serbia which insists it should remain within its borders.

Talks to resolve the issue are expected to start later this year, if Kosovo reaches U.N.-set standards on democracy, rights of minorities and rule of law.

Kosovo PM defends progress toward negotiations

Reuters, Fri Jul 29, 2005 11:53 AM EDT By Matthew Robinson

PRISTINA, Serbia and Montenegro (Reuters) - Kosovo's government told international powers on Friday it was doing its best to improve life for its Serb minority, a main condition for talks the Albanian majority hopes will bring the province independence.

Kosovo Prime Minister Bajram Kosumi met diplomats from major Western powers and Russia days after they wrote expressing concern at lack of progress in giving more local power to minorities, key to clinching "final status" talks this year.

Kosumi admitted the slow pace of reforms but said Belgrade shared the blame by blocking Serb participation in the project to create new municipalities in minority areas.

"The Kosovo government will do whatever it can to overcome these obstacles, but we cannot say that nothing has been achieved," he told reporters after meeting the Contact Group -- the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Russia.

The United Nations took control of Serbia's mainly ethnic Albanian province in 1999, after 78 days of NATO bombing drove out Serb forces accused of brutal atrocities against civilians as they fought to crush a separatist insurgency.

Six years on, a U.N. envoy is expected to report by September whether the province has made enough progress to secure negotiations the 90-percent ethnic Albanian majority hopes will lead to formal independence.

The U.N. first wants progress on democracy and minority rights, particularly in decentralizing powers to Serbs, who shun authorities in the capital Pristina and continue to live in isolated enclaves watched over by NATO-led peacekeepers.

That progress has been stalled by ethnic Albanians' reluctance to concede too much ahead of negotiations and by Serb complaints over the boundaries of the proposed municipalities.

In the letter to Kosumi the Contact Group said "the process to re-integrate Kosovo's minorities into communities has been too slow." Leaders must re-double their efforts since the result of the U.N. review was "not a foregone conclusion," it warned.

Serbia opposes independence for Kosovo, which Serbs regard as the sacred cradle of their nation. Analysts warn of fresh violence in the still-volatile province if talks are delayed.

Kosovo Confronts Its Future

GLOBAL POLITICIAN (USA), Jackson Allers - 7/29/2005

KOSOVO. It is a regular sight in the Ferizai/Urosevac municipality of Kosovo - some 50 kilometers north of the Macedonian capital of Skopje - to see U.S. servicemen parking their Humvees in front of small cafes during their regular "security" details. M-16's strapped across their torsos, the troops snack on kebabs, washing them down with Coca-Cola, and ogle the local Albanian girls.

These GIs are part of an occupying NATO force, known as KFOR, Kosovo Protection Forces, and they are expected to be present in Kosovo for a long time to come.

The so-called Contact Group countries - United States, United Kingdom France, Italy, Russia and Germany * most involved in deciding the future of this southern province of Serbia, tout 2005 as the "year of decision" for the status of Kosovo. Six years after the United Nations Security Council resolution 1244 designated Kosovo a U.N. protectorate the beleaguered U.N. Mission administering the province is looking to exit as quickly as possible despite the fact that the U.N.-appointed envoy to the region, Norwegian Ambassador Kai Eide, says the security and freedom of non-Albanian communities is at risk.

At the forefront of this push to resolve Kosovo's status are representatives of two U.S. presidential administrations.

During a July trip to Kosovo as the head of the Washington D.C.-based (and CIA funded) National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI), former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright commented, "I know Kosovans have a dream and people are entitled to have their dreams fulfilled."

This sentiment is backed by Venhar Nushi, a spokesperson for the Pristina-based political think-tank, Kosovo Action for Civic Initiatives, KACI, who said, "We all know what the United States actually did for Kosovo. From my point of view, I think the U.S. came here for a task, and that's to make Kosovo independent. Definitely."

CLINTON'S LEGACY

But, any claim by the U.S. to "resolve" the situation in Kosovo is hobbled by the legacy of former President Bill Clinton's decision to lead NATO in a 78-day bombing campaign of Serbia in violation of the U.N. charter. Diplomats and analysts point out that the bombing was illegal by international standards and its repercussions have been felt widely, including its invocation by the Bush administration to justify its own illegal invasion and occupation against Iraq.

What is clear, however, is that the United States has no plans of abandoning Camp Bondsteel, the 955-acre military installation described on the Camp's official homepage as being "located on rolling hills and farmland" in south-eastern Kosovo. The Pentagon has paid Halliburton subsidiary KBR more than $2 billion to construct the camp - an amount, according to the U.S. General Accounting Office, that was one-sixth of the money spent by the Pentagon on Balkan operations from 1995 to 2000.

During a visit to Kosovo in June, Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, Nicholas Burns said, "The U.S. is going to remain centrally involved in Kosovo, leading the diplomatic process [to resolve status]," adding, "we will certainly maintain a military presence here, with KFOR, as a symbol of our commitment for a secure and peaceful Kosovo."

Few ethnic Albanians question the presence of the U.S. military. The U.S. support of the Kosovo Liberation Army, the same group branded by the U.S. State Department in 1998 as a "terrorist organization," showed clearly to all ethnic groups in the disputed region that the U.S. favors the Albanians.

Political commentator, Dukagjin Gorani, Senior Editor of the Kosovo daily paper, the Express, admits, "Kosovars are not very prompt to understand the geopolitics of conspiracies. To Kosovars the existence of Bondsteel, which is now the biggest U.S. military base in Europe, is and will probably remain a sign of political stability for Albanians. In fact to most of us it is a sign that Kosovo will never again go back under the umbrella of Serbia and Montenegro."

Gorani also suggests that the average Kosovo Albanian sees "allowing" the U.S. military presence on Kosovo soil as their contribution to the U.S. "war on terror.'

KOSOVO SERBS

But ordinary Kosovo Serbs see the United States and the international community suggesting the province move towards independence, as stealing, by military force, the cradle of Serbian civilization.

Zoran Zdravkovic is a kindergarten teacher in the main central Serbian enclave, Gracanica, who traces his family roots in Kosovo back 600 years. He says that none of his friends can imagine living under Albanian rule.

"My son graduated faculty [university]. What work can he get here now? Nothing. My daughter is about to go to faculty. What then? My youngest daughter is 11, and what schools will she attend in an independent Kosovo?"

Official statistics put the unemployment rate at 60 percent among ethnic Albanians; numbers are much higher in the ghettoized Serbian communities. Serbian schools are precariously maintained in a de facto parallel system of governance. And while the United States, the international community and the Albanian-led government all talk about ensuring the security and human rights of Kosovo's minority communities, Zdravkovic, like many Serbs, says there is little practical evidence of this.

"If we want to move anywhere in Kosovo outside of our village to village routes, we have to request NATO escorts," Zdravkovic says, adding, "if Kosovo gets independence, no matter how bad our economic conditions could be in Serbia, we will leave because we want to have peace for our children * freedom to move around and, just live."

Belgrade's political leadership is very clear that independence is off the table as a condition of future status. The line coming from Belgrade: "Less than independence, more than autonomy."

But, as the Serbian leadership has acquiesced to earlier U.S. demands to hand over suspected war criminals to the International Court of the Former Yugoslavia in exchange for financial aid, many Kosovo Serbs are afraid that they will forgotten by Belgrade's leadership in future dealings.

Framed in a larger political context, analysts like Gorani see the resolution of status in a Muslim-dominated province as something that the Bush administration would love to put as a "positive example" of U.S. foreign policy that would allow it to continue the unilateral imposition of what it calls "democracy and human rights" through military means. But, he concedes that the verdict is still technically out as to what the future status of Kosovo will be.

Jackson Allers is the Balkan Correspondent for Pacifica Radio's Free Speech Radio News. In August, he will assume the International Media Advisor role with Kosovo's top legal watchdog, the former Polish Solidarity movement lawyer and internationally appointed Ombudsperson, Marek Antoni Nowicki.

Kosovars Concerned New Ministries May be Politicised

INSTITUTE FOR WAR AND PEACE REPORTING (UK)

UNMIK's transfer of justice and home affairs to Kosovars raises concerns that the two biggest parties may turn them into political fiefdoms.

By Artan Mustafa in Pristina (BCR No 567, 27-Jul-05)

As the UN administration in Kosovo, UNMIK, prepares to transfer limited responsibilities for police and justice to the local authorities, there are growing fears that both sectors may fall under the influence of the entity's biggest parties.

The internationally appointed chief of Kosovo, Soren Jessen-Petersen, handed a draft plan to create a ministry of interior and a ministry of justice to Kosovo's prime minister, Bajram Kosumi on July 19.

The plan, which envisages a limited transfer of policing and judicial responsibilities to the Kosovar authorities by the end of 2005, has got a green light from UN headquarters as part of their "exit strategy" from Kosovo.

The transfer is seen as part of the process of agreeing Kosovo's final status, expected to begin this autumn, in tandem with a reduction in the size of the civilian peacekeeping mission.

"The plan foresees the establishing of the ministry of justice and the ministry of police by the end of the year," Jessen-Petersen said in Pristina.

Jessen-Petersen said the new ministries would have to be free from political influence and work equally for all the people, regardless of their ethnic or political background.

UNMIK will retain a supervisory role and powers to intervene, reflecting concerns that Kosovars may not yet have the capacity to run justice and home affairs unaided as well as fears that these sectors may fall under political influence.

For Kosovars, the transfer of power over such key areas of national life is of great significance, reassuring them that there can never be a return to the Serb-ruled past.

At the press briefing with Jessen-Petersen, Kosumi said, " This was a big step forward for Kosovo."

But this does not completely close the issue, with both main political parties locked into a desperate struggle to insert their own people into the new structures.

The opposition Democratic Party of Kosovo, PDK, has already taken aim at the Homeland Security, a body that effectively functions as the private security service of the ruling Democratic League of Kosovo, LDK.

At the same time, the PDK runs its own security structure, the National Intelligence Service, SHIK. The head of the PDK parliamentary group, Jakup Krasniqi, recently asked the Kosovo assembly to accept SHIK as a legitimate part of the Kosovar Intelligence Service, which is to work inside the newly established interior ministry.

The struggle between the LDK and PDK for control of the new interior ministry and intelligence service has left Kosovo's other parties feeling squeezed out.

The Alliance for the Future of Kosovo, AAK, said it resented the prospect of the two big parties effectively dividing up the new ministries between them.

Naim Maloku, the AAK member of the Kosovo assembly's presidency, said his party wanted to "strongly distance itself from all party-based parallel and illegal intelligence services".

He said the AAK wanted to see "a new structure that will function solely in the interest of the citizens of Kosovo and will be under control of civilian authorities".

That may be a forlorn hope, as the PDK has clearly not resigned its ambition to gain control of at least part of the future security structures.

To justify this stance, a PDK leader, Enver Hoxhaj, said justice and home affairs would suffer if left solely in the hands of the current coalition parties.

"We have seen the performance of this government until now and we will suffer the consequences for ten years to come because they will politicise the two sectors," said Hoxhaj.

That still leaves the smaller parties and many experts feeling worried. Azem Vllasi, a well-known lawyer, said parliament would need to guard against the process of politicisation in the new justice and police ministries.

"Parliament has an obligation to prevent their politicisation," he warned. "If not, there will be no democratic society in Kosovo."

The debate comes at a sensitive time, as the police are currently investigating the role of the unofficial intelligence services operating under the umbrellas of the two main political parties.

With the LDK expected to nominate Kosovo's first justice minister, the PDK is increasingly anxious that most of the human resources for this ministry will come from the so-called Homeland Security.

Vllasi recommends strong monitoring of the two new ministries by UNMIK and the selection of a truly professional staff, chosen for experience rather than political background.

Even Kosovo's top international officials are sounding a wary note. "Corruption and a lack of transparency are problems here," the OSCE chief of mission in Kosovo, Werner Wnendt, warned. "The way that people treat public institutions is a problem."

Artan Mustafa is a journalist with the Kosovo daily newspaper Express.

Formal celebration of patronal feast of Holy Archangels Monastery near Prizren

KiM-Info Newsletter 28-07-05

The most important thing is to achieve a blessed state while still in this world, and to live in it in the eternal Kingdom of Heaven with all the saints of our people. It is important that we who represent our faith do not enter the place where our saints are with our head bowed, and that we are not ashamed before Our Lord and God and theirs but that He recognizes and acknowledges us as His faithful servants (from the sermon of Patriarch Pavle).

Prizren, July 27, 2005
KIM Info-Service

The monastery slava of the Holy Archangel Gabriel and the 650 year anniversary of the repose of the Emperor Dushan, the patron and founder of Holy Archangels Monastery near Prizren, was formally celebrated on Tuesday in this holy shrine. His Holiness Serbian Patriarch Pavle served Holy Hierarchal Liturgy with the concelebration of Bishop Artemije of Raska and Prizren and Vicar Bishop Teodosije of Lipljan. The holiday religious service and spiritual academy after it was attended by several hundred faithful and pilgrims from central Serbia and Kosovo and Metohija. After Holy Liturgy a memorial service was served at the graveside of the Emperor Dushan, whose body rests in St. Mark's Church in Belgrade.

Holy Archangels Monastery was built from 1343 to 1353 as the pious endowment of the Emperor Dushan. Among the other holy Serbian lavra, it was one of the largest and most significant monasteries of that age. After the fall of Prizren under Turkish rule in 1455, one hundred years after the founding of the monastery, this holy shrine began a period of difficult life and stagnation. The monastery lost its many properties and privileges. In 1615 Sinan Pasha ordered the destruction of the church of the Holy Archangels and its living quarters in order to build the mosque named after him, which still stands in the center of Prizren, out of the gorgeous marble used to build Dushan's church. The monastery with the grave of the Emperor Dushan was vacant until 1998 when the first monastery dormitory was restored with the blessing of Bishop Artemije. However, the suffering of the monastery continued and five years later, during last year's March riots, Albanians burned down the living quarters and the chapel of St. Nikolai of Ochrid and Zhicha. The monastery brethren led by Hieromonk Herman quickly restored the monastery's living quarters and this much suffering monastery celebrated this year's anniversary with new hope and élan.

After Holy Hierarchal Liturgy, Patriarch Pavle addressed those present with the following words:

“In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Brothers and sisters in Christ, we have gathered here today in this holy place where our forebears prayed to God throughout the centuries, in times of peace and times of enslavement, and in times when they fought for their freedom. They prayed for justice, truth and peace for all people of good will in the world. Because we all need peace, freedom and justice. That is why, brothers and sisters, we must always be aware of this truth throughout the centuries. Time builds palaces throughout the land; time builds and it destroys. However, time cannot build a man and then destroy him, for he remains human while he who has never been human will remain inhuman to the end of time. Our forebears know this as did all faithful Christians throughout the centuries. The most important thing is to achieve a blessed state while still in this world, and to live in it in the eternal Kingdom of Heaven with all the saints of our people. It is important that we who represent our faith do not enter the place where our saints are with our head bowed, and that we are not ashamed before Our Lord and God and theirs but that He recognizes and acknowledges us as His faithful servants.

“That is the message, brothers and sisters, of these 2,000 years. The message of the saints up to and including the present day. It is not easy to be human even in a world of men, let alone in a world that wallows completely in evil. But let us repeat that there have always been those who even during difficult times have remained human. What sort of consolation would we have if the times were pleasant and carefree, and we were to lose our honor and our soul, that which is most important.

“Our Lord and Holy Archangels and all the Saints, help us to truly remain on the narrow and difficult path and at the narrow gate that leads to life eternal. That we may gather thus on the side that Christ will recognize and acknowledge as his faithful servants. Then we will be overjoyed and our joy will have no end nor will anyone be able to take our joy from us. Lord, help everyone, including ourselves. Help all people of good will throughout the world. Everyone needs peace and justice and freedom.

“Glory to you, O Lord, and gratitude eternal. AMEN.”

The celebration at Holy Archangels Monastery was attended by the following representatives of the Belgrade government: Serbian Assembly Speaker Predrag Markovic; Dr. Nebojsa Covic, head of the Coordinating Center for Kosovo and Metohija; Minister of Religions Radulovic; and representatives of the cabinet of Serbian President Boris Tadic. The ceremony was also attended by KFOR representatives led by the commander of Multinational Brigade South-West, German General Norbert Steer.

Serbian national television's Second Program broadcast the entire Hierarchal Liturgy live.

The celebration took place with the assistance and protection of international KFOR troops and UNMIK police, who made it possible for the faithful to attend and secured the area around the monastery. The festivities at Holy Archangels unfolded peacefully and in dignified fashion to the joy of the few remaining Serbs of the Prizren region and the monastery brotherhood, which invested great efforts in ensuring a hospitable and brotherly reception for their numerous guests.

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Danas daily, Belgrade
July 27, 2005

Everyone needs peace and freedom

650 year anniversary of death of Emperor Dushan commemorated yesterday in Holy Archangels Monastery near Prizren

Prizren, Belgrade - Holy Hierarchal Liturgy, a memorial service of the Emperor Dushan, the cutting of the slava cake and a spiritual academy took place yesterday at Holy Archangels Monastery near Prizren in celebration of the monastery patronal feast (slava), the Assembly of the Holy Archangel Gabriel, and the commemoration of the 650 year anniversary of the death of the patron and founder of this medieval monastery, Emperor Dushan. In his holiday homily, Serbian Patriarch Pavle prayed "from this holy place" for "truth, justice, freedom and peace which everyone needs".

"It is not easy to be human even in a world of men, let alone in a world that wallows completely in evil. But there have always been those who even during difficult times have remained human. What sort of consolation would we have if the times were pleasant and carefree, and we were to lose our honor and our soul. Our Lord and Holy Archangels and all the Saints, help us to truly remain on the narrow and difficult path that leads to life eternal and that we may find ourselves on the side that Christ will recognize and acknowledge as His own. Lord, help everyone, including ourselves. Help all people of good will throughout the world," said the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Holy Archangels, where he served Holy Hierarchal Liturgy with Bishop Artemije (Radosavljevic) of Raska and Prizren, and Bishop Teodosije (Sibalic) of Lipljan, the vicar bishop of the Diocese of Raska and Prizren, together with the priests and monks of this Diocese.

Bishop Artemije called on Serbs yesterday "to stay and live in Kosovo and Metohija in the future as they have done for hundreds of years in the past". In addition to hundreds of Serbs, the festivities at Holy Archangels were also attended by representatives of the Serbian Presidency; Milan Radulovic, Minister for Religions of the Serbian Government; Nebojsa Covic, president of the Coordinating Center for Kosovo and Metohija; deputies from the Serbian Assembly, and political representatives of the Kosovo Serbs. State national television's Second Program broadcast live coverage from the celebration.

Holy Archangels Monastery is located three kilometers southeast of Prizren at the entrace of the Bistrica River gorge. It was build in the mid-fourteenth century on the remains of an older church site as an imperial lavra and the principal pious endowment and future tomb iste of Emperor Dushan. The entire complex, devastated and abandoned after the Turkish occupation of Prizren (1455), was comprised of 6,500 square meters. Archeological excavations in the monastery did not begin until 1929. That same year, King Aleksandar I Karageorgevic issued an Edict transferring the remains of Emperor Dushan from his pious endowment (until it is restored) to the church of St. Mark in Belgrade, where they are presently located.

The spiritual and material restoration of Holy Archangels began exactly ten years ago. A new living quarters was built which was quickly inhabited by the young brothers; however, upon the arrival of the UN mission to Kosovo and Metohija this monstery was among the first to be attacked by the Kosovo Albanians. A member of Holy Archangels, monk Chariton Lukic, was kidnapped in mid-June 1999; his headless body was discovered one year later. Even though the monastery is practically located in a German KFOR camp, the celebration of the 650 year anniversary of the monastery on July 26, 2002 was marked by an explosion at the Visegrad fortification and Albanian demonstrations in Prizren because of the arrival of almost 1,000 Serbs for the monastery slava.

During an attack by several thousand Kosovo Albanians in the March pogrom last year, Holy Archangels was completely destroyed; the dorminotires were burned down, the bell tower was destroyed and the marble ptom cover on the grave of Emperor Dushan was destroyed. Thanks to the efforts of the Diocese of Raska and Prizren, the Serbian GovernmentSerbian Government and numerous donors, at the end of December the monastery has a new direction. Yesterday's ceremony at Holy Archangels was protected by strong forces of German KFOR. J. T. (Translation by sib on July 27, 2005)

30 July 2005

UN envoy says Kosovo progress "disappointing"

ADN KRONOS INTERNATIONAL (ITALY) 28-Jul-05 12:31

Pristina, 28 July (AKI) - The UN envoy to Kosovo has said he is disappointed with the situation in the province, which has been under UN control since 1999, and that "additional progress" was needed before the talks on the final status of Kosovo could begin. Kai Eide, is expected to submit a report to the Security Council and to UN secretary general Kofi Annan in September on implementation of the human rights and democratic standards set by the international community as a precondition for the talks.

In an interview to Swiss news organization ISN Security Watch, Eide said some progress has been achieved in creating a legal framework in Kosovo, but he voiced a disappointment with slow return of refugees and general security situation.

"Frankly, I wish I had seen more progress and more maturity by the Kosovo leaders", said the Norwegian diplomat. In his words, the basic need was to create a political environment which would stimulate the return of refugees. "I don't think that it exists in Kosovo", he added.

Over 200.000 Serbs and other non-Albanians have fled Kosovo since 1999, and remaining demands independence. Ethnic Albanians, who make up a 1.7 million majority, want independence for the former Yugoslav province.

Eide evaded a question on what action he would recommend to the Secretary-General and the Security Council, but said that "in this phase additional progress is needed".

Court Rejects Serbs' Bombing Appeal

DEUTSCHE WELLE, 28.07.2005

A German court on Thursday rejected an attempt by 35 Serbs to claim compensation for Germany's part in the 1999 bombing of a bridge in Varvarin, Serbia, during the Kosovo conflict. The appeal court in Cologne ruled that neither international law nor German law allowed for such a claim, upholding a decision made by a court in Bonn in December last year. The German state cannot be accused of "behaving like a war criminal" as a result of the aerial bombing of the bridge in the central Serbian town which killed 10 people and injured 17, the judges ruled. The Serbs, all relatives or friends of the victims, were claiming 536,000 euros ($650,000) in damages in a civil case which was the first of its kind in Germany. The claimants said that although no German military personnel were in the planes which bombed the bridge, Germany was part of the NATO operation and took part in the decision to carry out the bombing. The Serbs said after the ruling that they would now take their case to the federal court of justice. In claims backed up by Amnesty International, the Serbs said the NATO air strikes on May 30, 1999, on the town 160 kilometres (100 miles) south of Belgrade violated international law because they targeted civilians

Kosovo government ignores return issue

B92, Belgrade, July 27, 2005 21:21

PRISTINA -- Wednesday - Representatives of the minority communities in Kosovo are accusing the Kosovo government of ignoring the work of the Minorities Interest Council as well as the return effort.

Council President Randjel Nojkic said that the government is not showing enough readiness to seriously begin facing the problem of returning refugees to the region.

"The real question is, are those people calling for the return of refugees really interested in returning people to their homes or are they just spouting rhetoric, so that it would appear that standards have been implemented, but they will be fulfilled only at the moment where actual return efforts will be visible. For now, this is not the case." Nojkic said.

President of the Democratic Action Party of Kosovo, Numan Balic, said that the individual representatives of the minority communities who are participating in government coalitions are satisfied with the relations that the government is showing towards their communities so that is why not much attention has been paid to the work of the council.

"Five or six communities are not satisfied with their representation in the Kosovo institutions and parliament. That is the basis of our standard complaints. The Commission for Legal and Community Issues is not equal in importance to the rest of the parliamentary commissions, however." Balic said.

The press conference was not attended by council members from Albanian parties, or by the six plus group, which represents non-Serbian minority groups and is part of the ruling coalition.

The Brooklyn-Kosovo-London Connection

SERBIANNA (USA), Wednesday, July 27, 2005 By M. Bozinovich

Last week's airing of a documentary "The Brooklyn Connection" that glorifies an Albanian gunrunner, Florin Krasniqi has prompted, according to the author of the documentary, an investigation by the US Department of Homeland Security. What the agency is exactly investigating is not clear at this point, but anyone who read Stacy Sullivan's book used as base for the documentary, Be Not Afraid, For You Have Sons In America, should be afraid: a young uneducated Muslim Albanian illegally enters America via porous Mexican border, goes gun shopping to Pakistan and repeatedly ships guns via plane and in full sight of American flight attendants.

While the ranting in the Sullivan's book may be dismissed as a hearsay in the courts, the investigation into Krasniqi and his Albanian charity network may hit a brick wall because it may expose high level dirty laundry, most of them Clinton's administrators.

Consider: Ten minutes into the documentary we see the illegal immigrant Florin Krasniqi with an Albanian "guerilla" entourage known as KLA contributing at a John Kerry fundraiser and having a laugh with Democrats Wesley Clark and Richard Holbrooke. Fundrace.org indicates that Krasniqi indeed donated money to Kerry.

Krasniqi laments that "With money, you can do amazing things in this country... Senators and congressmen are looking for donations, and if you raise the money they need for their campaigns, they pay you back."

The political power of money that Krasniqi alludes to may have also caused the mischaracterization of the KLA from a "terrorist" into a "guerilla" group. Sullivan says that Albanian lobby chief, Joseph DioGuardi had a silent talk with Clinton's Balkan envoy Robert Gelbard who was adamant in referring to KLA as terrorists, and after the chat miraculously switched his reference to a more desirable "guerilla rebels". In fact, FBI has warned Krasniqi on 2 occasions that the KLA will be soon listed on a terror list and "advised" him to cease the "charity" fundraising.

Soon thereafter, a shadowy and Clinton-connected covert operations specialist Giles Pace was standing with Krasniqi's political moneyman DioGuardi at an airport. Jill Nicholson radio talk show in Las Vegas featured Pace on a Sept. 10, 1998 show billing him to have "direct links with the Albanian government". Krasniqi says that Pace may have been a CIA operative although some have said that he was Clinton's personal contact for dirty wars. Pace disappears when NATO starts bombing Serbia over KLA instigated warfare in Kosovo.

Terror Connections

Clinton allegedly pressured Albania to curb gun smuggling but that the pressure meant nothing was recounted by Krasniqi himself. Retelling Krasniqi's tale, Sullivan says that the US pressured Albanian President Berisha to establish a "special anti-arms-trafficking police force" and when this Albanian force intercepted Krasniqi running guns to Kosovo "the Krasniqis and their weapons were free to go." In fact, President Berisha's farm was used as a weapons stash for the Kosovo Albanians, a fact that could hardly be overlooked by Clinton's administration.

Clinton made it similarly clear that the US would "not tolerate the rebels receiving any assistance from Islamic fundamentalists." In a footnote, Sullivan cites that "This was confirmed to me both by Florin and two other KLA leaders." but cites that "[I]n April 1998, an Egyptian-born Frenchman named Claude Cheik Ben Abdel Kader, who claimed to be an operative for Al Qaeda, had approached the KLA Supreme Command in Tirana and offered to provide guns, money and fighters." KLA allegedly refused because of their already demonstrated loyalty to Clinton's clarities.

Kader was eventually arrested and sentenced to 20 years in jail.

People look at the bombed police building in Macedonia's capital Skopje, on Saturday, July 16, 2005.

Recent bombings in Macedonia, however, indicate possible al Qaeda-Krasniqi links. Skopje-based Vecer says that Agim Krasniqi's group was involved in the bombing attack on a police station in the village of Vratnica, while a Saudi Ramadan Shiti also triggered a similar police station bombing in Skopje. Both used "plastic" explosives and both reside in a Macedonian village of Kondovo where the police are afraid to go in because the armed Albanians and mujahedeen gangs have made the village their military base. Agim Krasniqi claims that he allegedly did not know anything at all about the Skopje bombing.

Sullivan's Krasniqi is rather clear of Albanian intentions in Macedonia. "...we'll take over that country because we'll be the majority." Presumably, coordinated bombings of police stations across Macedonia help in this endeavor.

KLA and London Bombings

According to Christope Chaboud, the new commandant of the anti-terrorist unit of France UCLAT, a unit of the French criminal police which specializes in the fight against terrorism, said that the explosives used in the London terrorist bombings on July 7, 2005, were of military derivation and had come to the UK from Kosovo.

Similarly, British military and defense analyst Paul Beaver said that "a part of the investigation dealing with the London blasts is aimed at links between radical Islamists in Bosnia and Kosovo with international terrorist groups." Beaver says that the KLA and Muslim federations developed close links with the criminal mafias in Albania.

"These clans are involved in drugs and arms smuggling," Beaver says. "The cooperation did not cease, and that is why the director of CIA Porter Goss recently visited both Sarajevo and the Albanian capital Tirana to express grave concerns of Washington because of their cooperation with radical Islamic groups."

Meanwhile, UK security officials flew to Belgrade to discuss the matter with Serbia-Montenegro security officials because the explosive was ex-Yugoslav Semtex, an explosive no longer made by Serbia but freely available for sale in Kosovo.

A Christian village of Vratnica, bombed by Agim Krasniqi in July 2005.

Titled We buy bag of Semtex from terrorists, London Mirror describes the ease with which their investigative reporters bought plastic explosives from KLA. "We made our deal in Kosovo, a breeding ground for fanatics with al-Qaeda links." writes Graham Johnson, Mirror's Investigations Editor. "Our contact was the deputy commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) Niam Behljulji, known as Hulji. The group were trained by Bin Laden's men." Johnson "bought enough Semtex to blow up Oxford Street and the Houses of Parliament or down 40 Lockerbie jets."

A Criminal Connection?

The appearance that a Brooklyn Connection has spread its sinister plot across the globe is inexorable. That a roofer is implicated in all of this is unlikely but what is likely is that some of the endeavors that CBS and PBS glorified in their documentary may actually connect more dots then intended by the Documentary's Dutch filmmaker Klaartje Quirijns.

In November 2004, FBI broke up a Brooklyn-based Albanian Mafia clan and among the 21 indicted is a certain Ljusa Nuculovic whom FBI describes to have "held a knife to the throat of a suspected [FBI] informant and was involved in an August 2001 shoot-'em-up at an Astoria social club called Soccer Fever. Nuculovic, an admitted gun-runner for the Kosovo Liberation Army [KLA] during the Balkan wars of the early 1990s, wound up taking over the Lucheses' Astoria operation" cites Manhattan Federal Court prosecutor Tim Treanor.

Stacy Sullivan states that Krasniqi's gunrunning fund was the only game in town, records of which FBI should clearly have. What in fact is FBI investigating now - terror, criminal or both - is therefore rather unclear.

That there is some secrecy in the money trail of the Brooklyn Connection, however, is attested by Stacy Sullivan who received an undisclosed amount of money by an "anonymous foundation that funded my fellowship" at a lavish MacDowell Colony, an expensive sanctuary that caters to artists providing them physical stimuli for their creations. Her book is a wealth of information, some of it faulty, but in the afterthought, she did manage to start the book with a quote from Nietzsche that warns those who fight monsters "should look to it that he himself does not become a monster."

FBI investigation should clarify who is now the monster and how has it become.

World Bank grants US$12.5 million for Kosovo projects

Associated Press, Jul 27, 2005 11:22 AM

PRISTINA, Serbia-Montenegro-U.N. authorities in Kosovo signed an agreement Wednesday with the World Bank allocating US$12.5 million (€10.4 million) for two projects aimed at improving the province's business environment and the use of its public resources.

One project aims to assist an investment promotion agency and dozens of municipal public record offices, and the other provides support for the budgetary process and development of public employment policies, a U.N. statement said.

The deal was signed by the head of the U.N.'s economy sector, Joachim Ruecker, and the bank's official in Kosovo, Kanthan Shankar, U.N. spokeswoman Mechthild Henneke said.

"The two World Bank-financed projects aim to create a conducive environment for private sector participation and strengthen Kosovo's ability to use public resources more effectively, efficiently and transparently," Shankar said in a statement.

The projects will be implemented mainly by province's Ministry of Trade and Industry and the Ministry of Finance and Economy.

Kosovo has been administered by a U.N. mission since mid-1999.

Alcatel sings deal to modernize Kosovo's fixed phone network

Associated Press, Jul 27, 2005 5:47 AM

PRISTINA, Serbia-Montenegro-French telecommunications company Alcatel SA signed a deal Wednesday with Kosovo's Telecom to modernize and expand the fixed-line network infrastructure in the province, an official said.

Under the €17 million (US$20 million) deal, several dozen outdated systems will be updated with new technology, said Seremb Gjergji, the spokesman for Kosovo's Post and Telecom.

The project also aims to double the number of fixed-line phones, Gjergji said. Currently, there are 115,000 users of fixed telephony.

"The state-of-the-art solution that will be provided is unique in the Balkans and among the most innovative in the world," the Kosovo company said, adding that the agreement will bring province's telecom "the next generation VoIP solution."

Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, technology shifts calls away from wires and switches, instead using computers and broadband connections to convert sounds into data and transmit them over the Internet.

The implementation of the project will start in October, Gjergji said.

Kosovo mission winds down

FIJI TIMES, Wednesday, July 27, 2005

POLICE officers have been sent to Sudan because peacekeeping missions in Kosovo are downsizing, Police Commissioner Andrew Hughes says.

"The peacekeeping mission to Kosovo has been downsized and plans for these missions are in fact made by government," Mr Hughes said.

Two police officers on attachment in Sudan left last month, with eight more leaving soon.

Foreign Affairs minister Kaliopate Tavola said his ministry received the requests and then passed it on to the Home Affairs minister.

Last year, it was reported Fiji stood to earn $6-million a year if police peacekeeping missions were set up this year.

Mr Hughes had said last year the United Nations Security Council was looking at sending troops to the Ivory Coast last year.

A report from UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan was sent to Mr Hughes last year stating that conditions were right to establish a peacekeeping mission in strife-ridden Ivory Coast.

Sonce then, Mr Hughes said nothing had been finalised yet because it was still a proposal.

He said six UN police officers were to carry out an assessment of future peacekeeping operations.

He said last year that prospects for peacekeeping operations by Fiji police abroad looked bright with the deployment of officers to Kosovo reducing gradually from 31 to 19 and additional deployments filling the vacuum.

Officers serving peacekeeping missions in Liberia will be earning $312 in daily allowance while those deployed to Kosovo earned $128 a day and those serving in the Solomon Islands earned $64 a day.

The first police peacekeeping mission abroad was in 1989 to Namibia, in southwest Africa.

29 July 2005

Bomb said defused in Pristina ahead of EU envoy's Kosovo visit

BBC Monitoring, July 20, 2005, Wednesday

Text of report in English by Croatian news agency HINA

Pristina, 20 July: International peacekeepers and local police have defused a bomb planted in one of Pristina's main streets, just hours before an announced visit of EU High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy Javier Solana, the police said on Wednesday [20 July].

The centre of Pristina was sealed off for several hours on Tuesday night as bomb disposal experts defused the bomb which, according to police spokesman Agron Borovci, had been planted by "two underage persons".

Solana, who is currently on a visit to Serbia-Montenegro [SCG], was scheduled to visit Pristina later on Wednesday for talks with senior officials there.

Several explosions have occurred in Pristina over the past weeks, without claiming any casualties. Anonymous groups have threatened violence unless negotiations between Belgrade and Pristina on the future status of the southern province result in full independence for Kosovo.

SOURCE: HINA news agency, Zagreb, in English 10:34 GMT, 20 Jul 05

French UCLAT Chief Notes Balkan Link to London Bombings

Defense & Foreign Affairs Special Analysis - July 18, 2005 Monday

Analysis. By Valentine Spyroglou, GIS. Christope Chaboud, the new commandant of the anti-terrorist unit of France (UCLAT: l'unite de coordination de la lutte anti-terroriste), a unit of the French criminal police, Police Judiciaire (PJ) which specializes in the fight against terrorism, said on July 13, 2005, that the explosives used in the London terrorist bombings on July 7, 2005, were of military derivation and had come to the UK from Kosovo.

GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs had already known that the bombs used were based on former Yugoslav National Army (JNA) stocks of Semtex plastic explosive, and that subsequent to the London bombings, UK security officials flew to Belgrade to discuss the matter with Serbia-Montenegro security officials. GIS sources had said that the Semtex had originated from the Bosnian jihadist support network, although it is important to stress that the Bosnia-Kosovo-Albania-Raska (Southern Serbia) jihadist net functions as a single operational zone.

See:

Defense & Foreign Affairs Special Analysis, July 8, 2005: London Bombings: Initial Observations .

Defense & Foreign Affairs Special Analysis, July 11, 2005: Additional Evidence of Support for Terrorists, Violations of Arms Trafficking Laws by New Bosnian Ambassador to US .

Defense & Foreign Affairs Special Analysis, July 13, 2005: Despite Firm Linkages to 9/11, Madrid, and London Attacks, Bosnian Jihadist Networks Remain "Out of Bounds" .

Sources within the Greek security agencies -- which have extremely good access in the Balkans and are very activated in the region -- after the London bombings told GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs that "for years" they had given information to their allies for the activity and the danger derived by the Islamists in Bosnia and Kosovo and Albania; although there is no reciprocation on their part (ie: the allies do not respond by providing intelligence on the jihadists to the Greek security agencies). Furthermore, the Greek security sources stated that "a month ago and after information derived from the Greek agencies and the Greek military force in KFOR, CIA and MI-6 disarticulated three cells of al-Qaida in their common operation held in Kosovo. They had also found contemporary armament and military plastic explosives. A comparison was held between the oddments of the explosives in London, and the explosives found in Kosovo one month [earlier]." For the results, the agency simply told GIS that they only needed to be asked.

By way of background: on July 27, 2000, beginning at 05:30 hrs, a common operation was held in Greece by the Greek agencies and the US Army under the code name Fuente . The Greek patrol of the Special Forces, discovered, based on information which directed them to the site, a clandestine cache with many armaments and explosives on Kourkoulitsa mountain, in the Greek Peleponnese, near the village Nepodible (as transliterated). Among other things, there were sniper weapons, and manportable rockets of contemporary technology. Also, there were found electronic devices which could simultaneously detonate remote-controlled explosive devices in different locations from a distance of many kilometres.

The US Forces had kept the remote control devices and the explosives for further investigation.

The Greek officers continued independent research, and they concluded that these derived from a country in the Middle East, which had supplied them to Islamists via the Albanian network of UCK (KLA: Kosovo Liberation Army). The Greek Force has arrested three times fundamentalists in Kosovo, and has handed them over to the US.

The Greek agencies focus in the area of Sanzak (Raska) in southern Serbia and northern Montenegro, and they consider that there are located important cells of fundamentalists which had planned strikes against Europe. Since 1996, jihadist terrorists from Bosnia-Herzegovina have been located in Sanzak. The Greek agencies have information that many terrorist attacks against the Caucasus and Europe derive from there, and it operates as a directorate of al-Qaida .

At the same time, and while the memorial events were taking place for the victims of Srebrenica, former US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrook stated that the Orthodox Serbian Church was hiding the Bosnian Serb fugitives Radovan Karadzic and Gen. Ratko Mladic. On July 8, 2005, the NATO forces in Bosnia arrested the son of former Pres. Karadzic, Aleksandar "Sasa" Karadzic, in order to put pressure on the former President for his arrest.

Another important issue emerging are the charges against Greek citizens for alleged involvement in the alleged massacres in Srebrenica. This issue remains secret within the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the Greek Government at this point, although the (ICTY) sent a confidential report in the Greek Government at the beginning of July 2005 on the possible role of Greek volunteers who fought in Srebrenica.

See:

Defense & Foreign Affairs Special Analysis, June 17, 2005: Srebrenica and
the Politics of War Crimes .

Defense & Foreign Affairs Special Analysis, July 13, 2005: Researchers and
Former UN Officials Challenge Portrayal of Events at Srebrenica.

MIRROR: WE BUY BAG OF SEMTEX FROM TERRORISTS

THE SUNDAY MIRROR (UK), Dec 7 2003 By Graham Johnson Investigations Editor

A TERRIFYING threat to Britain's security can today be revealed by the Sunday Mirror.

With the country on its highest-ever state of alert amid fears of a Christmas terror strike our investigators infiltrated a cell of Muslim extremists - and bought enough Semtex to blow up Oxford Street and the Houses of Parliament or down 40 Lockerbie jets.

OUR HORRIFYING HAUL: Graham and Donal (left) bury the semtex for safety

Last night one of the men we dealt with was under arrest. The other was believed to have been assassinated by his own terror masters for blowing their cover.

Our 13.5kg haul of Semtex - in 108 sticks - is one of the biggest ever seized from terrorists and could have potentially armed 30 suicide bombers.

And chillingly the explosive, which we bought for £10,000, was of a form that doesn't show up on metal detectors, making it much easier to smuggle into Britain.

A small amount of the explosive was allegedly found here last week as police arrested more than 20 terror suspects.

Posing as members of the Real IRA, we were also offered three shoulder-held missile launchers, an anti-aircraft gun, and enough machine guns, hand grenades and landmines to equip a small army.

We made our deal in Kosovo, a breeding ground for fanatics with al-Qaeda links.

Our contact was the deputy commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) Niam Behljulji, known as Hulji. The group were trained by Bin Laden's men.

Astonishingly, we met him under the noses of the British Army and UN forces - who remain as peacekeepers following Kosovo's bloody war with Serbia.

Hulji, is said to supply terrorists across Europe and has been accused of massacring Serbian women and children during the war.

He even posed grinning for a photograph, holding the severed head of one his victims.

But we won him over by playing on one of his weaknesses...he is a huge fan of Irish rock band U2.

He couldn't wait to deal with us when we promised him one of the band's CDs - which we had signed with a fake message from lead singer Bono.

He told us: "I can give you enough Semtex for a small war. Do you need it for terrorism?"

Our investigation, carried out with Channel 5 sleuth Donal MacIntyre for his series MacIntyre's Millions, began when we arrived in Kosovo posing as members of the Real IRA.

Our first contact was with a Mafia arms dealer called Sinbad Sadkutz, who acts as a middleman for Hulji.

Sadkutz arranged a meeting with Hulji in a KLA-run cafe which was surrounded by armed guards and had been swept for "bugs".

Hulji said: "The plastics (Semtex) is the old type. No metal strips inside. It cannot be detected at airports. It is untraceable - no chemical markers."

He then offered us an anti-aircraft gun similar to one used by Iraqi dissidents last week to hit a US DHL cargo plane as it landed in Baghdad.

We next met Sadkutz in a Mafia-run brothel called The Massage Club, and agreed to buy 15kg of Semtex for £10,000.

To make sure the deal went through smoothly, Hulji insisted that we hand over a "human deposit" hostage and £7,500 in euros.

Our "deposit" was my fellow investigator Dominic Hipkins. He was to be held in a terrorist-owned bungalow - opposite the British ambassador's residence in Pristina - while the deal was sorted out.

Four days later Sadkutz took our man to collect the Semtex from his nearby home and the pair returned to the bungalow, the explosives packed into a sports holdall.

The grey-brown Semtex, wrapped in brown grease-proof paper marked "explosive", looked and felt like child's play dough.

But when burnt with a lighter it produced an intense blue flame - proving it was Semtex. As a Sunday Mirror investigator tested the explosive, Sadkutz grinned as he said: "15kgs can blow up all this neighbourhood."

After Sadkutz had left, we found the KLA had hidden 1.5kg of lead in the lining of the bag so that the actual Semtex weighed 13.5kg, instead of the 15kg we had negotiated for.

For safekeeping, our investigators buried the Semtex on a hill overlooking the British Army base in Kosovo and took a satellite reading of the exact position.

We then told the British Police in Kosovo, part of the UN presence there, exactly were it was.

It was later retrieved by a our investigators and a Finnish bomb disposal squad - who told us the hill had been mined during the war.

Following our investigation, with the whole country on red alert, 12 local policemen were arrested on terrorist charges.

The officers, said to be members of a secret cell aiding Kosovan extremists, are suspected of plotting to blow up a bridge and a power station.

Sadkutz was arrested on Thursday by British police operating in Kosovo. And there were strong rumours last night that Hulji had been assassinated for compromising the KLA's terror operations.

But the KLA were not the only group interested in selling terrorist weapons. While we were in the Balkans word had quickly spread that the Real IRA wanted to buy weapons. In neighbouring Croatia we bought a machine gun and a Walther PPK pistol.

In Belgrade, the capital of nearby Serbia, the local Mafia emailed us to offer a cache of anti-tank missiles, Kalashnikovs, a mortar and illegal landmines for £50,000.

And in neighbouring Montenegro, on the Adriatic coast's version of the Costa Del Crime, another war criminal was selling death on an industrial scale.

The man, known as Vesko - a former bodyguard of Serbian warlord Arkan - offered to supply us with 20 rocket-propelled grenades, 20 shoulder-fired missiles and 20 Spider machine guns used by the SAS.

To return to Britain, our investigators followed the route used by gun-runners out of the Balkans. We drove the short distance into Montenegro then sailed by car ferry from Bar to the Italian port of Ancona, blending in with holiday makers.

Once there they flew home - but could have easily taken a coach through Italy and France to Calais or hidden among thousands of asylum seekers hitching rides on fruit lorries and train carriages.

Last night a spokesman for Scotland Yard said: "Britain is on a high state of alert, only one below the highest level.

"That means we know the terrorists are planning to attack targets in the UK."

Vratnica attack said done by Krasniqi group, Bit Pazar by a Saudi

BBC Monitoring, July 20, 2005, Wednesday

Text of report by Tomislav Kezarovski entitled "Krasniqi was shooting in Vratnica, Shiti in Bit Pazar" published by Macedonian newspaper Vecer on 20 July.

Agim Krasniqi's group was involved in the terrorist attack in Vratnica, whereas the group of Ramadan Shiti, a convict on the loose, planted the plastic explosive in the Bit Pazar [Flea Market] police station. Vecer has learned these details of the investigation into the attacks on the two police stations. The two groups are still hiding in Kondovo, where, according to intelligence sources, there are between 50 and 70 armed men, mostly young. Most of them are local residents but they also have great support from their Kosovo associates. Therefore, the MVR [Macedonian Interior Ministry] is employing a strategy, it is keeping quiet and choosing the right moment to carry out the operation in Kondovo because the state leadership gave it a free hand last week.

The investigation into the Bit Pazar attack indicates that the explosive was made and planted by a foreigner because few people in the country know how to deal with "plastic". The fact that the attack was actually a message to the government shows that a "professional" was involved. The investigation shows that the assailant followed the security officer in the police station and had only two minutes to plant the explosive, taking into account that there were no unnecessary victims. During the investigation, the name of criminal Ramadan Shiti emerged. Shiti, along with his eight-member group, has so far been operating independently from Krasniqi. The MVR has information that Shiti is related to Islamic terrorists from the Middle East. Operative data say that he was expelled from Saudi Arabia under suspicion of preparing an attack on a prominent person.

Unofficial reports indicate that Shiti's group has "raised the temperature" over the past three days in two or three police stations in Skopje by threatening, in writing, that they will blow them up. The police assess that domestic fundamentalists, who also influence developments in the Islamic Religious Community, support Shiti. Their assessments are identical to those of the US intelligence services. This makes both sides anxious, especially after the threats of new attacks, although they proved to be false.

Agim Krasniqi, for his part, allegedly did not know anything at all about the Bit Pazar incident on Friday [15 July].

SOURCE: Vecer, Skopje, in Macedonian 20 Jul 05 p 6

Serbian terrorism expert warns of Wahhabi presence in Bosnia, Kosovo

BBC Monitoring, July 18, 2005, Monday

Text of report by Dragana Bokan entitled "Islamic state in the Balkans" published by the Serbian newspaper Borba on 11 July

"Wahhabism is a reformist movement. Its goal is to return to orthodox Islam and purge the faith of the so-called novelties and of everything that has infiltrated the faith through custom. They are thus fighting against everything that throughout history has enriched the Islamic culture and tradition," Radoslav Gacinovic, an expert in national security and the fight against international terrorism, said at the start of his interview for Borba. He added:

"Wahhabis believe that every Muslim should look like Muhammad and his Ashabs [contemporaries]. Their appearance, customs and behaviour make them easy to recognize. They grow long beards, their hair is short, and they usually wear ankle-length trousers. They do not talk or socialize much and do not communicate with neighbours who are not their followers."

Gacinovic, when asked to what degree Wahhabism was present in this region, said that the Arab office of "Taleban-Internationalism" [as published - presumably erroneous transcription of Taybah International], officially a humanitarian organization, took the credit for the settlement of these dangerous warriors in the territory of former Yugoslavia.

"For example, Bosnia-Hercegovina in the period between 1989 and 2002 saw the arrival of tens of thousands of foreigners who came from Arab countries. According to official data, around 30,000 did not officially leave Bosnia-Hercegovina and nobody knows where they are. It is assumed that among them is a large number of Wahhabis who through the SDA [Party for Democratic Action] were granted B-H citizenship and settled in Bosnia-Hercegovina. If, however, we add to this number the mujahidin who fought with the Muslim army and received top decorations, citizenship and permanent residence, then their message to the United States and the European Union is clear: they are here and are afraid of no one. Their presence in Bosnia-Hercegovina will strengthen the Islamic influence in Europe and blunt the international fight against terrorism," Gacinovic said.

He added that the mujahidin, together with the Wahhabis, in Bosnia-Hercegovina organized training camps in the village of Bocija [presumably erroneous transcription of Bocinja] on Mt Ozren. This mountain from a strategic point of view is very important because it is on the border between the [Bosnian] Serb Republic and the Muslim-Croat federation [Bosnia-Hercegovina Federation].

Eighty mujahidin families, with around 600 members, stayed in this village until 2001. Camps for the training of "world warriors" are also located in Mitrovici village near Zavidovici, in Fojnica near Sarajevo, and in the vicinity of Zenica. The village of Gradacak of late has become a major Wahhabi stronghold.

It may be stated with certainty that Wahhabis are present in Bosnia-Hercegovina and that they are enjoying the support of the Bosnian Salafis [Islamic purists ]. This was confirmed by the statement three years ago by Senad Agic, the chief imam of the Islamic Community in the United States. Agic warned that one in a hundred Muslims in Bosnia-Hercegovina was a member of the Wahhabi movement and a follower of Wahhabi teachings. Considering that they are spreading quite aggressively, their number in Bosnia-Hercegovina at present is much bigger. Imam Agic in his statement warned Muslims in the world with the following words:

"If we do nothing, Wahhabis are going to cost us our lives."

"Even the Muslim religious dignitaries in Bosnia-Hercegovina have called for the rejection of the Wahhabist teaching, while the Muslim state institutions in Bosnia have continued to tolerate the Wahhabi movement in Bosnia-Hercegovina. High Representative in Bosnia-Hercegovina Paddy Ashdown, in spite of all the information about the real presence of 'holy warriors' in Bosnia-Hercegovina, claims that there is no Islamic terrorism in Bosnia, thus obfuscating the actual situation on the ground. This is slowing down the active international fight against terrorism," Gacinovic said.

According to Gacinovic, the Wahhabis' strategic goal is to expand and infiltrate the region with a Muslim population.

"We thus reasonably suspect that a certain number of Wahhabis are present in the Raska area and KiM [Kosovo-Metohija]. It is difficult to determine their number. Just the knowledge that they are there, however, is a serious warning and concern. They are recruiting young people who are dissatisfied and unemployed. Their target group in most cases is religiously semi-literate persons. Most of the recruits get support and financial aid from the Wahhabis. From the security aspect, we absolutely must not neglect and lose sight of this.

"Their activities must be under constant control of the SCG [Serbia-Montenegro ] security system. In my opinion, the goal of the Wahhabi movement is to create in phases an independent Islamic state in the Balkans.

"In the first phase, they will try to create a Wahhabi mass movement in Serbia, with most of the Muslim population in their movement. In the second phase, they will do their best to arm themselves and will be in continuous contact with Hizbullah International, the Islamic intelligence agency, which at any given moment will be able to provide them with any kind of help from the Muslims of the world.

"In the meantime they will become politically involved. They are already looking for a political leader who should be loyal to them and be an authority among the Muslim population. They will try to win elections and gain power; this would enable them to seek from many aspects the establishment of a Sandzak republic, while drawing on the experience of the terrorist OVK [Kosovo Liberation Army] in KiM. In the third phase, they will do everything to get the international community involved in a possible conflict; this, according to their plan, would be a transitional period pending Raska's secession from Serbia and the creation of a great Islamic state in the Balkans, stretching from Macedonia to Cazin in Bosnia-Hercegovina," Radoslav Gacinovic said at the end of his interview for Borba.

SOURCE: Borba, Belgrade, in Serbian 11 Jul 05 p 2

CIA Probes Possible Kosovo Links To London Blasts

INTER PRESS SERVICE, Jul 25, 2005 7:02 PM by Vesna Peric Zimonjic

BELGRADE, Jul. 25, 2005 (IPS/GIN) -- The Balkans could be a "springboard" for terrorist attacks in Europe like those in London, a senior regional analyst says.

"This is not a region that could become a target for terrorists," analyst Zoran Dragisic told IPS. "It's rather that the spot might be used as the springboard for Europe."

There are strong reasons for such fears, he says. The U.S.-backed wars that led to the disintegration of former Yugoslavia brought in arms, drugs and people smugglers of all kinds from all over the world. The region was flooded with weapons and ammunition.

And with this abundance of arms there was a strong al-Qaeda presence.

"Al-Qaeda sent its followers to fight side by side with fellow Muslims in Bosnia in 1992-95," Dragisic said. "Later on, it helped ethnic Albanians in 1997-98. There is data showing that al-Qaeda invested up to 700 million dollars in the Kosovo uprising."

CIA director Porter Goss quietly visited Bosnian capital Sarajevo earlier this month.

Serbian media have prominently reported a statement by leading British military and defence analyst Paul Beaver that "a part of the investigation dealing with the London blasts is aimed at links between radical Islamists in Bosnia and Kosovo with international terrorist groups."

In the war years the Liberation Army of Kosovo (KLA) and Muslim federations developed close links with the criminal mafias in Albania, he told Serbian media.

"These clans are involved in drugs and arms smuggling," he said. "The cooperation did not cease, and that is why the director of CIA Porter Goss recently visited both Sarajevo and the Albanian capital Tirana to express grave concerns of Washington because of their cooperation with radical Islamic groups."

The war ended ten years ago, but Dragisic and other experts say that illegal arms trade and training are continuing across the Balkans, particularly in Bosnia and Kosovo, which is run by the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) but dominated by the Albanian mafia.

A U.S.-backed armed uprising by mostly Muslim Albanians in Kosovo against Serbian forces led to 70 days of NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999, which was fatal to hundreds of civilians. Serb security forces left Kosovo and UNMIK took over, looking the other way as Albanians went on a vengeful rampage that killed hundred of Serbs and drove out 200,000.

Bosnia remains suspect in many ways over links with Islamic movements, a Western diplomat told IPS. "During the war Bosnia was used as a place for laundering of identities, a spot for Islamic militants to put a foot into the doors of Europe."

The business of laundering of identities was well known in Bosnia during the war. Islamic fighters came from the Middle East, northern Africa or Afghanistan, often giving fictitious names, a fact that the western media deliberately ignored.

A brigade named 'Al Mujahedin' made up from these fighters became a part of the Bosnian army. Many Islamic fighters married Bosnian women and got new papers after the war. Some of them still live in close-knit communities in central Bosnia, refusing contact with reporters.

The Bosnian ministry for civil affairs says at least 900 men acquired Bosnian passports in this way since 1995. Six of them were extradited to U.S. authorities and transferred to the Guantanamo Bay military base following the attacks on New York and Pentagon in 2001.

Dozens of humanitarian aid organisations funded by Islamic countries like Saudi Arabia and Indonesia have been banned from Bosnia after being identified as fronts for "suspicious organisations", a senior Bosnian official said.

Albanians Given 10 To 12 Years In Jail For Human Trafficking: UN

ONASA/AFP, Jul 25, 2005 11:54 PM

PRISTINA, July 22 (ONASA/AFP) - Three Albanian citizens have been sentenced by a UN court in southern Kosovo to between 10 and 12 years in prison for human trafficking, a UN official said Friday.

"The District Court of Prizren sentenced Vladimir Ukaj and Robert Sylaj to 12 years in prison each, and the third defendant Sabri Islami to 10 years," UN spokesman Neeraj Singh told AFP.

"The prison terms are the highest ever in a human trafficking case in Kosovo," he added.

Besides human trafficking, the defendants were found guilty of rape, facilitation of prostitution and falsification of documents.

Singh said the investigation found out that two female victims from Albania, one of them 16 years old, "had been lured to Kosovo with false promises of legitimate work, only to find that their supposed employers were in fact intending to force them into prostitution".

Kosovo has been administered by the United Nations since a NATO-led bombing campaign ousted Serbian troops from the mainly ethnic Albanian province in 1999 to end a Serbian crackdown on rebels.

Kosovo Albanian Gets 18-year Jail Term For Attempted Murder Of Serb

ONASA/AFP, Jul 25, 2005 11:54 PM

PRISTINA, July 22 (ONASA/AFP) - An ethnic Albanian man was found guilty Friday of the attempted murder of a Kosovo Serb during March 2004 riots was sentenced to 18 years in prison by a UN court, his lawyer said.

Mehmet Morina, 29, was found guilty of attempted murder of elderly Kosovo Serb Zlatibor Trajkovic by beating him in the street during the three days of inter-ethnic violence in March 2004, lawyer Aqif Tuhina told AFP.

Trajkovic was eventually set aflame by the ethnic-Albanian crowd.

The incident occurred in the Serb enclave of Kosovo Polje, some 10 kilometres southwest of the capital Pristina.

Tuhina said he would lodge an appeal to the supreme court, "as we believe the prosecution did not present sufficient material evidence for this verdict."

The March 2004 riots were the worst ones since the UN and NATO took control of the southern Serbian province in June 1999, at the end of a war between Belgrade armed forces and ethnic Albanian rebels.

Nineteen people were killed and over 900 injured, including international police and NATO peacekeepers (KFOR), as mobs of ethnic Albanians attacked minority enclaves mostly inhabited by Serbs.

More than 4,000 people -- mostly Serbs -- were forced to flee.

More than 70 people have been indicted so far in relation with the March 2004 violence for the killings, burning of Serb houses, churches and monasteries, aggravated inter-ethnic violence and violence against police.

Several people have been convicted so far for involvement in the violence, but Friday's sentence one is the most severe.

25 July 2005

Petersen ready to sack Kosovo deputy prime minister

ADN KRONOS INTERNATIONAL (ITALY) 25-Jul-05 15:18

Pristina, 25 July (AKI) - The head of the United Nations administration in Kosovo (Unmik) Soren Jessen Petersen is about to sack the deputy prime minister Adem Salihaj and two of his ministers - Melihata Termokli and Astrit Haraci - Albanian language daily Koha Ditore, said on Monday. Over three months ago the opposition Democratic Party of Kosovo (DPK) accused Salihaj and the two ministers of corruption, saying that Salihaj was also heading an illegal organisation called Security of Motherland, which was responsible for several political murders.

After the accusations DPK leader Hasim Taci demanded Salihaj's resignation, but the call went unheeded.

According to DPK, Salihaj was behind the killing of several members of President Ibrahim Rugova's Democratic Alliance of Kosovo.

Koha ditore said that Petersen, who as UN head has wide powers in Kosovo after the withdrawal of the Serbian army in 1999, was losing patience and would sack Salihaj and two ministers "for abuse of power" by September, if president Kosumi didn't act by then.

The paper said that Petersen wanted Salihaj to leave his post before talks start on the final status of Kosovo, whose majority ethnic Albanians demand independence. According to Koha Ditore, Security of Motherland has threatened to kill its editor and several prominent politicians for making public Salihaj's illegal activities.

UN seeks pact for Kosovo's 'separate worlds'

INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE (FRANCE) By Nicholas Wood The New York Times, TUESDAY, JULY 26, 2005

PRISTINA, Kosovo In the six years since NATO bombers forced Yugoslav troops out of this troubled province, progress toward resolving the entrenched enmity here between Serbs and ethnic Albanians has been slow. The United Nations, which has been administering Kosovo, now wants to broker a deal and step aside.

The negotiations are bound to be painful. Serbs are determined to keep Kosovo, their religious heartland, while ethnic Albanians, who make up 90 percent of the population, demand independence after suffering years of ethnic violence that culminated in the war of 1998 to 1999. The majority of each community barely acknowledges the existence of the other.

Serbs face the possibility of living in an independent, Albanian-dominated state. Diplomats say that if Albanians want to achieve anything like independence they will have to give the Serbs basic rights, such as freedom of movement, as well as the right of return to those Serbian refugees who fled the region.

The framework for the negotiations is far from clear. The United Nations has commissioned a report to determine if and when talks can start. Despite some Russian and Chinese opposition in the Security Council, most diplomats expect the negotiations to begin by early October. The talks would involve local Albanian and Serb leaders as well as the Serbian government and representatives of the leading industrial democracies.

While many Western officials privately acknowledge that independence is perhaps the only solution that the Albanian population will accept, the Serbian government is hoping Kosovo will remain within Serbia, but be granted substantial autonomy.

Any resolution has to grapple with Kosovo's nearly complete division along ethnic lines, a rupture that goes back to June 1999, the month the Serb-dominated Yugoslav forces who were accused of committing atrocities against Albanians were forced by NATO troops to withdraw.

As the soldiers left, the returning ethnic Albanian refugees sought revenge on their Serb neighbors, and forced up to 200,000 to flee the province. Those Serbs who stayed - their numbers are seasonal and fluctuate between 70,000 and 130,000, according to local aid agencies - have led volatile lives.

Interethnic violence, which can dissipate for months on end, often reappears without warning. In March last year, 50,000 Albanians rioted across the province, attacking Serbs and other minorities and forcing 4,000 from their homes. Few Serbs remain in Kosovo's cities, with the exception of Mitrovica, which is divided down the middle along ethnic lines. Instead, most Serbs live in rural enclaves like Gracanica, the largest such enclave with a population of 5,000, just three kilometers, or two miles, south of Pristina.

Gracanica, like most Serbian villages across Kosovo, retains links with the Serbian capital, Belgrade. Serbia provides such basic services as health and education, and some documentation, like passports and birth and marriage certificates, services that rankle Albanians who regard the United Nations and their regional government as the only rightful authorities in the province.

Albanians drive through the town, which lies on one of Kovoso's main trunk roads, but pedestrians and those in the cars studiously ignore each other.

"We live in two separate worlds," said Sasa Sekulic, a Serbian business owner in Gracanica. Forced to leave his home in Pristina by ethnic Albanian looters, Sekulic set up a small business making Turkish delight, a sticky jellylike candy. He planned to sell it in Kosovo, but while Albanians are happy to sell him the ingredients to make the sweets, Albanian shops refused to stock his products after a television news show revealed they were made in Gracanica.

"They will buy products from the rest of Serbia, but if it is from Kosovo they don't want to know," he said. "Their ultimate aim is for us to move from here altogether." Without the international community there to protect them, he said, most Serbs do not see a future in a Kosovo dominated by Albanians.

"You won't find us here," he said. "We don't want to live in an independent Kosovo."

Police fire warning shots to disperse Serb crowd in Kosovo

Associated Press, Jul 25, 2005 7:30 AM

PRISTINA, Serbia-Montenegro-Officers fired warning shots and pepper spray to disperse a crowd of Serbs in a confrontation in a Kosovo town over the weekend, police said.

The incident occurred Sunday in the divided town of Kosovska Mitrovica, 45 kilometers (30 miles) north of province's capital, Pristina, when police attempted to arrest a man suspected of throwing bottles at a U.N. police officer patrolling a bridge.

Bystanders intervened, pushing back officers until the suspect escaped, police said Monday.

"As the crowd continued to advance ... one of the officers discharged four warning shots into the air, causing the crowd to stop their advance," a police statement said.

Kosovo has been administered by the U.N. and patrolled by NATO-led peacekeepers since 1999, when the alliance ended a Serb crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists.

In a separate incident, unknown assailants fired an automatic rifle and threw a hand grenade into the yard of a Serb house Sunday in a northern Kosovo village. No one was injured but the house was damaged, police said.