19 September 2007

KLA letter admitting attack on UNMIK cars sent from Tirana - Kosovo paper

BBC Monitoring Europe (Political) - February 23, 2007, Friday

Excerpt from report by Nebih Maxhuni and Jeton Musliu: "UCK letter 'made in Tirana'" by Kosovo Albanian newspaper Express on 22 February

Prishtina [Pristina], 21 February: A letter through which the organization calling itself the Kosova [Kosovo] Liberation Army [KLA] claimed responsibility for damaging UN vehicles in Kosova two days ago was written in Albania. The statement, circulated to Kosovar media, was written on a Tirana computer with IP address 217.24.246.71, with which it was registered as an internet consumer.

Express sources have said that a computer with that number was used for writing the letter advising that, with the attack on UNMIK [UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo] vehicles, the UCK wanted to take revenge for the two people killed during the 10 February demonstration, organized by the Self-Determination Movement. But except for the IP address, it is not known who sent the email or who uses that specific IP.

Only the authorities of Albania's Albtelecom, a company that offers telecommunication, fixed telephony, and internet services in Albania, can identify the user. IP addresses from 217.24.245.0 to 217.24.249.255 belong to Albtelecom. The IP used for sending the email is 217.24.246.71, meaning that it belongs to Albtelecom. Express made efforts to contact Hysen Hoxha and Vilma Tomaco, officers in charge of IP addresses in that company, to confirm the origin of that email message, but it was impossible to get in touch with them, as neither of them would answer the phone.

In the meantime, it has been learned that the explosive device that damaged three UNMIK and one private vehicle in Prishtina was TNT. Speaking on condition of anonymity, a police source has confirmed this, explaining that 100 grams of TNT was used and that it was activated from a remote control device. "Preliminary investigations show that the device used to damage the UNMIK vehicles was trotil [TNT]," he said. [passage omitted]

Source: Express, Pristina, in Albanian 22 Feb 07 pp 8, 9