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By John Crewdson, Tribune senior correspondent. Reporting and research assistance was provided by Drew Crosby in Madrid MADRID -- The most sweeping criminal indictment to arise thus far from the Sept. 11 attacks reflects a quiet but dramatic change in understanding by investigators here and across Europe of the terrorist organization known as Al Qaeda, and the international Islamic radical-terrorist network of which, they now agree, it is merely a part. As laid out in the indictment, the defendants' alleged activities--from arranging travel and providing introductions to procuring false documents and, especially, moving money--provide the first detailed look at one...

Four years on from its independence, Kosovo is attempting to reaffirm its native traditions and is calling on the West for help to avoid being swallowed by the slow advance of radical Islam, which is taking advantage of tolerant traditions. Four years on from its independence, Kosovo is attempting to reaffirm its native traditions and is calling on the West for help to avoid being swallowed by the slow advance of radical Islam, which is taking advantage of tolerant traditions. The scenario is one of inter-religious dialogue that is progressing at its own slow pace, without making any fuss and...

A key witness in a war crimes case against a senior Kosovo figure has been found dead in Germany, the EU rule of law mission in Kosovo (EULEX) said Wednesday. "EULEX confirms that Agim Zogaj, known as witness X in the Klecka case, was found dead in a park in Germany," the mission's statement said. It added that the "German authorities are conducting the necessary investigation to determine the circumstances of his death." According to local media reports, Zogaj had agreed to testify in the case of Fatmir Limaj, one of the most prominent commanders of the ethnic Albanian guerrillas...

A 3 part investigation by the Global Post into Kosovo's endemic corruption and what the US, NATO and Western governments knew before we went in, after we went in, and even before we supported Kosovo "independence". Kosovo's Mafia: Assassinations and intimidation (CIA inspired), Part 2 Kosovo's Mafia: A hotbed of human trafficking (sex slaving), Part 3

Think Mubarak was bad? Kosovo's leaders are accused of being organ-smuggling, drug-dealing goons -- and the United States is looking the other way. Amid fireworks and celebratory gunfire, Kosovo -- Europe's newest country -- turned three years old on Thursday, Feb. 17. But behind the scenes of revelry in the capital, Pristina, it's clear that it will take a lot more than flag-waving for the fledgling country to grow out of its terrible twos. For all the hope that was once showered upon this young democracy, it still faces an enormous uphill battle: the country has no international postal or...

Americans should feel betrayed by the contents of the Council of Europe's report on organized crime in mostly Albanian-populated Kosovo, a country that owes its existence to the United States. The report, authored by Swiss prosecutor Dick Marty, includes allegations that Kosovo leaders have committed heinous crimes and allegations that American and European diplomats and U.N. officials in Kosovo overlooked wrongdoing to preserve "political stability." Kosovo's leaders have waged an ugly media campaign to discredit Marty and his findings and have threatened to launch a witch hunt against Albanians who aided the inquiry. Washington's voice is needed now to stop...

In Strasbourg on January 25th the Council of Europe voted to formally endorse Swiss senator Dick Marty’s report on organ-trafficking by the KLA mafia that the U.S. installed to run Kosovo. The resolution calls for an investigation by international judicial bodies as well as one by Albania (keep dreaming) into various serious crimes in post-war Kosovo. At the PACE meeting (Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe), the Albanian delegation tried to water down the resolution, with some lawmakers trying “to either postpone debates on the issue or somehow smooth out the report’s rather tough formulations,” Voice of Russia paraphrased...

UNITED NATIONS, December 27 -- Accused of covering up the harvest and sale of organs of prisoners of war in Kosovo, the UN has had nothing to say for the past 11 days. Nor has it commented on reports of the beating of a journalist directly in front of its UNMIK headquarters in Pristina for the past five days. On December 27, the UN simply ignored the organ question altogether.....

The conflict that raged throughout the former Yugoslavia was met by a wall of silence when it came to important issues. These important issues apply to America and the United Kingdom supporting Islamists in a brutal civil war in Bosnia and then installing a new nation by ignoring international law in Kosovo. Also, is it credible to believe that the vast majority of major news agencies and national governments did not know about thousands of Islamists in Europe who were sent to slit the throats and behead Orthodox Christians? Shoeless Holbrooke sits with Muslim Albanian gunmen that ran the organ...

This week, the Globe and Mail asked General Lewis McKenzie (Retired) to write the obituary of American diplomat Richard Holbrooke. It was a good idea. The two men had crossed paths more than once on the global stage of the Great Game. McKenzie declined. Holbrooke had just died and the general knew that what he had to say would hardly produce the standard panegyric. When I caught up with McKenzie, he was shoveling snow after a spell away from home. I asked for an interview and to my surprise, he agreed. “I’m just going to tell you what I thought...

PARIS — A two-year international inquiry has concluded that the prime minister of Kosovo led a clan of criminal entrepreneurs whose activities included trafficking in organs extracted from Serbian prisoners executed during the Kosovo conflict in 1999. The inquiry, prepared for the Council of Europe, names the prime minister, Hashim Thaci, as the boss of the Drenica Group, an organized crime network that flourished in Kosovo and Albania after the war and exerted control over numerous rackets, including the heroin trade, and six secret detention centers in Albania, some used in a black market in human organs.

Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke collapsed today during a meeting in Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's office, officials said. According to Democratic sources, Ambassador Holbrooke, Secretary Clinton's top aide for the region, gasped and was clearly undergoing a medical situation when he collapsed. He is said to have walked out of her office on his own power and was tended to by medical personnel at the State Department before being transported to George Washington University Hospital where to be treated for a blood clot. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley refused to confirm Ambassador Holbrooke's condition, but confirmed...

“Conservative” Joseph DioGuardi’s “sensational” election as the GOP Senate candidate in New York has shaken up the Republican Party, gloats the Tropoja-based Albanian Minerals President M. Mujaj in the Wall Street Journal Blog. “The American people have spoken,” this self-styled compatriot of ours is telling us. “The American way of life needs to be rebalanced. Households need to stop spending what they don’t have. Local and state governments need to slash their budgets to live off whatever tax revenues they generate [...] The American people voted for change.” What Mr. Mujaj does not mention is that former Congressman DioGuardi is...

On the same day the anti-illegal immigration group Americans for Legal Immigration endorsed former Congressman J.D. Hayworth in his bid to unseat Senator John McCain as the GOP candidate for Senate, the McCain campaign is calling on Hayworth to disavow the endorsement. "J.D. Hayworth's lavish praise for the social theories of noted anti-Semite and xenophobe Henry Ford sparked a major controversy during his losing 2006 campaign, causing many Arizonans to question Mr. Hayworth's judgment. It is astounding that Mr. Hayworth would today accept the endorsement of a group that the Anti-Defamation League reports is backed by white supremacists, neo-Nazis and...

BILLINGS - American Police Force officials showed up in Mercedes SUV's that had "Hardin Police" stenciled on the vehicles. The twist, the city of Hardin doesn't have a police department. Two Rivers Authority officials say having APF patrol the streets was never part of their agenda. "I have no idea. I really don't because that's not been a part of any of the discussions we've had with any of them," said Two Rivers Authority's Al Peterson. As it stands now the Big Horn County Sheriff's Department is contracted to patrol the city and APF has no jurisdiction. If that was...

2009-07-16 18:57:55 Former fighters from the Kosovo Liberation staged Thursday a protest demonstration in the capital of the Kosovo Republic Prishtina. About 50 men who fought in the KLA in 1998-1999 rallied in demand of an increase of their government pensions, BGNES reported. The demonstrators even threw a hand-made bomb and two explosives in the yard of the Cabinet headquarters in Prishtina but they failed to go off. NATO troops from KFOR arrived at the spot of the incident in order to remove the explosives, and the police isolated the whole quarter. The leaders of the KLA protesters have vowed...

I first laid eyes on Richard Holbrooke (he won't remember) on Monday evening, September 21, 1992. Some ridiculously wealthy Manhattan socialite had thrown a party for Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic, then the new cause du jour, and some boutique human rights group — a bogus one, I realized in retrospect, now defunct, though its chieftain has since moved to greener pastures and is still active — had decided that I might be useful and had flown me up for the soirée. As it was, nobody was interested in me, I had a drink or two, ate some peanuts, and went...

Want someone murdered? Albanian hitmen are touting for business in London, apparently without any fear of the law are we living in Chicago or a scene of the "Goodfellas" News Desk The London Daily News has discovered that professional Albanian assassins are "touting" for business in the capital claiming to be able to "take out" targets for as little as £5,000. In an under cover investigation into criminal gangs operating in north London Albanians who fought in the KLA during the bloody Balkans conflict against Serbia, now have now established themselves as formidable figures in the London's underworld. Experienced users...

Julia Gorin's unpublished letter to the Washington Times: The Washington Times recently gave print space to William Walker, described as a retired U.S. Foreign Service officer and former ambassador. But Walker is much more than that. In Kosovo, he remains a hands-on operative who has trained, and implemented the demands of, our terrorist ally the KLA — which as predicted now controls the Serbian province as its “legitimate” rulers. The piece (“A Separate Take from Serbia”, Feb. 24) was presented as a response to an op-ed by Serbian President Boris Tadic, when in fact it was an attempt by essentially...

"He (McCain) did everything that we asked of him, including arming the KLA", said Albanian lobbyist Joe DioGuardi. The Albanians collected one million dollars for the presidential campaign of this senator.Americans of Albanian heritage collected a million dollars in one evening for the presidential campaign of Republican Senator John McCain, said the Albanian American Civic League yesterday, the lobby group headed by former Congressman Joe DioGuardi. A reception for McCain was held January 22 at the Saint Regis Hotel in Manhattan, and the senator, who is now leading in the runoff for the Republican party candidacy in the November elections,...

PRISTINA, Kosovo -- Kosovo armed forces took over security duties on Wednesday, less than a year after the territory declared independence from Serbia, officials said. The Kosovo Protection Force replaces a 3,000-strong civilian emergency organization formed out of the disbanded ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army that fought Serbia in the 1998-99 war. New commander Lt. Gen. Sylejman Selimi, a former rebel fighter, said the 2,500 lightly armed troops would fulfill security duties in the fledgling nation, but would remain under the supervision of NATO's 15,000 peacekeepers in charge of overall security. It will be trained by British NATO officers, wear...

PRISTINA (Reuters) - Germany declined to comment on Saturday on reports that three Germans arrested on suspicion of throwing explosives at an EU office in Kosovo were intelligence officers. The explosive charge was thrown on November 14 at the International Civilian Office (ICO), the office of EU Special Representative Pieter Feith, who oversees Kosovo's governance, but caused only minor damage. The men were detained on Thursday. The three were questioned on Saturday by a Pristina district court judge who ordered them to be detained until December 22. A defense lawyer told reporters that the three were suspected of having committed...

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain has enjoyed strong support from a lobbyist group that backs the Kosovo Liberation Army despite allegations the KLA is a Muslim terrorist group with ties to criminal drug networks and al-Qaida. The Albanian American Civic League, or AACL, regards the KLA as "freedom fighters," said the AACL's president, former Republican congressman Joe DioGuardi of New York. They're "not terrorist, like the Serbs and Greeks say," DioGuardi insisted in an interview with WND. But Islam expert Robert Spencer, editor of the popular website Jihad Watch, contends radical Islam is the driving force behind the Kosovo...

John McCain armed Kosovo Islamic terrorists February 13, 2008 Source: Svet Americans of Albanian heritage collected a million dollars in one evening for the presidential campaign of Republican Senator John McCain, said the Albanian American Civic League yesterday, the lobby group headed by former Congressman Joe DioGuardi. A reception for McCain was held January 22 at the Saint Regis Hotel in Manhatten, and the senator, who is now leading in the runoff for the Republican party candidacy in the November elections, cut his campaign in Florida by one day to attend this gathering. "Even in 1998 when we had problems...

“He did everything that we asked of him, including arming the KLA�, said Albanian lobbyist Joe DioGuardi. The Albanians collected one million dollars for the presidential campaign of this senator. Americans of Albanian heritage collected a million dollars in one evening for the presidential campaign of Republican Senator John McCain, said the Albanian American Civic League yesterday, the lobby group headed by former Congressman Joe DioGuardi. A reception for McCain was held January 22 at the Saint Regis Hotel in Manhatten, and the senator, who is now leading in the runoff for the Republican party candidacy in the November elections,...

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain has enjoyed strong support from a lobbyist group that backs the Kosovo Liberation Army despite allegations the KLA is a Muslim terrorist group with ties to criminal drug networks and al-Qaida. The Albanian American Civic League, or AACL, regards the KLA as "freedom fighters," said the AACL's president, former Republican congressman Joe DioGuardi of New York. They're "not terrorist, like the Serbs and Greeks say," DioGuardi insisted in an interview with WND. But Islam expert Robert Spencer, editor of the popular website Jihad Watch, contends radical Islam is the driving force behind the Kosovo...

The Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), since its inception in 1993 has been assailed by many as a NATO political instrument to justify dismemberment of Yugoslavia and NATO aggressions. It has been essentially a rogue court with rigged rules and scandalous protocol to achieve political objective to convict. Some judges did not hear about the Balkans until they arrived in The Hague. John Laughland wrote: “It is not victor’s justice; it is no justice at all.” The Tribunal’s verdict for the Serbs was predetermined –all would be found guilty. Over its 15 years of existence, the Tribunal has indicted...

I have written in today's paper about the revelations from Carla del Ponte's new book "The Hunt: Me and War criminals". I wanted to talk to her before writing the piece, but was unable to get an interview. Some readers of this blog have already posted snippets of the book in their comments. Most of these excerpts - translated from the original Italian - have come from Serb media outlets - perhaps not the most objective source for a story about Serbs being tortured. So with the help of our Rome correspondent, Malcolm Moore, I have put together a transcription...

MOSCOW, April 8 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's Foreign Ministry has asked the Hague to provide details on crimes described in a book by former chief criminal prosecutor Carla del Ponte, the ministry said on Tuesday. In her book called The Hunt: Me and War Criminals, Carla del Ponte described atrocities against Kosovo Serbs and other ethnic groups committed by the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). "Batching freedom of speech concerning crimes against civilians, one may assume, is aimed at softening the reaction within international social and political circles to the facts revealing the criminal prehistory to the illegitimate sovereignty of Kosovo,"...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jV_LnXaQ8A

via translation - ALERT - Kosovo: Thaçi confirms a proclamation of independence Sunday PRISTINA (Serbia) - Prime Minister of Kosovo Hashim Thaçi confirmed Saturday that the independence of the province in southern Serbia was proclaimed Sunday, when he said "the will of the citizens of Kosovo" will be executed.

As Defence Minister Peter MacKay attempts to browbeat, badger or coerce a NATO partner into reinforcing the mission in southern Afghanistan, most European countries are keeping their eyes on a possible security crisis much closer to home. It is widely expected that Kosovo will unilaterally declare its independence from Serbia within the next six weeks, and if history repeats itself, this will trigger yet another round of Balkan bloodletting. In anticipation of an escalation in ethnic violence in the disputed province, reinforcements have been sent into Kosovo to bolster the international security force that has been in place there for...

A Hellenic Case Against Hillary by Theodore G. Karakostas The following critique is not motivated by partisanship. I am a critic of the anti-Hellenic and anti-Orthodox policies of both major political parties. However, the focus now is Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party. In 1992, then Presidential Candidate Bill Clinton promised the Greek-American community he would not recognize Skopje with the name Macedonia. In 1994, the Clinton administration broke its promise and subsequently recognized Skopje under the Hellenic name of Macedonia. The Clinton administration subsequently tried to pressure Athens to lift the embargo that had been justifiably imposed by Greece...

The former chief of the Albanian separatist guerrillas, Hashim Thaci, has proclaimed Sunday victory of his party in the elections in Kosovo. The leader of the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) advocates a speedy independence of Kosovo. "I thank all those who have helped our victory and the victory of Kosovo," said Hashim Thaci, at a rally of his supporters. According to the NGO "Democracy in Action", which monitors elections, the KDP has obtained 35% of the vote against 23% for the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK), founded by the charismatic President Ibrahim Rugova, who died in 2006. The...

The UN state and the seven robbers When Bernard Kouchner lands in Kosovo in the summer of 1999 there is no mobile telecommunication. German Siemens and French Alcatel submit one offer each. A panel of local experts select Siemens. The offer is the cheapest and it is not colonial. At a fixed lump sum the Germans promise to build a network for Kosovo. The French offer says the network would remain French property and the country code of Monaco would be utilized. Kouchner and the Kosovo Gangster What happens? Bernard Kouchner, Kosovos legislator, head of government and head of justice,...

20 August 2007 | 01:46 | FOCUS News Agency Pristina. Hundreds of Kosovo Albanians attended a folk concert to celebrate the 61th birthday of former US president Bill Clinton on Sunday, remembering his support for their separatist struggle. Dancing to Albanian folk music before a huge birthday cake outside the national theatre, they expressed gratitude for Clinton's approval of a NATO bombing campaign to end a Serbian crackdown during the 1998-99 Kosovo conflict. "I hope president Clinton lives to be 101. I hope his wife Hillary is elected president and rules America as her husband did," said Lutfi Salihu, a...

So, the secret is out. The “premier” of the Kosovo government, the former ringleader of the terrorist “Kosovo Liberation Army” Agim Ceku has named the date, to which the Albanian leaders of the province would time their declaration of independence. That is slated for November 28,2007, when the neighbouring Albania will celebrate its principal state holiday - Day of the Flag. But the holiday has to do with Albania but indirectly. It has long been viewed by the Albanian diaspora scattered all over the world as Day of All Albanians. To understand what Kosovo separatists mean by selecting this particular...

An important set of meetings will take place today at the State Department and the White House that may well determine the future stability of southeast Europe and the integrity of the international system. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is set to meet with the "unity team" of Kosovo leaders to decide the way forward on the status of Kosovo, now that it is clear Russia will veto any U.N. Security Council resolution that puts Kosovo on a path to independence. Eight years ago, I served as President Bill Clinton's chief of staff when our administration faced a similar dilemma....

Bexhet Pacoli, the richest Kosovo Albanian in the world from whose telephone, according to BND findings, a transaction in the amount of two million euros was arranged from a Swiss bank to one in Cyprus in the name of Kosovo special envoy Martti Ahtisaari, openly claims that he is paying 60 people just in Washington who are lobbying for the independence of Kosovo. "In Washington I am paying a team of 60 people who are lobbying for Kosovo in the administration of president George Bush and in the U.S. Senate and Congress," said Pacoli in a recently published interview. He...

6.7.2007 17:09 MERDARE, (Tanjug) - Representatives of the Serbian Government Commission for Missing Persons on Friday accepted the remains of five Serbs, who were kidnapped and then murdered by the Albanian terrorists in Kosovo and Metohija during the 1998-1999 period, Commission President Veljko Odalovic told Tanjug.

NEW YORK -- Six men from New Jersey have been arrested in an alleged terror plot against soldiers at Fort Dix, according investigators. Investigators said the men planned to use automatic rifles to enter Fort Dix and kill as many soldiers as they could at the N.J. base. Fort Dix was just one of several military and security locations allegedly scouted by this group, authorities said. Investigators told Newschannel 4's Jonathan Dienst that these arrests are the result of a tip to the FBI and use of an informant to track the suspects. Authorities were alerted in January 2006 after...

THE HAGUE -- The trial of three former Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) commanders continued Thursday. The trial of Ramush Haradinaj, Idriz Balaj and Lahi Brahimaj continued with the testimony of an elderly Albanian man, who gave his evidence as Witness 8, with image and voice distortion. According to the allegations in the prosecution’s pre-trial brief, Witness 8 gave evidence about an incident on 20 July 1998, when two Albanians were taken off a bus between �akovica and Priština and subsequently killed. In his 15-minute long testimony, the witness confirmed he was from the �akovica area and he was present on...

The 2006 U.S. elections, which put the Democrats in charge of the House and Senate, were widely described in media as a referendum on the Iraq war. Intense media scrutiny had resulted in critical reports on pre-war intelligence, the decision-making process that preceded the war, the postwar plan, and an unfolding civil war. Books with titles such as Fiasco, Imperial Hubris, and Colossus described an America in denial of imperial ambitions that were destined to fail. Their authors and others ascribed to the U.S. such motives as arrogance and a willful refusal to learn from history. They characterized American foreign...

Pristina: An explosion damaged seven automobiles belonging to the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in the Kosovo town of Pec on Monday, just hours before former prime minister Ramus Haradinaj left for the Hague to stand trial before the United Nations' tribunal for the former Yugoslavia on charges of crimes against Serb and other civilians during the 1998/99 Kosovo conflict. "Immediately after the explosion, the police found seven OSCE automobiles damaged at the scene as well as two private vehicles," local police spokesman Avni Djevukaj told media. He said the explosion took place at 3.30 am local...

Defense & Foreign Affairs Special Analysis - January 19, 2007, Friday Analysis. By GIS Staff. Reliable sources indicate that the Chinese-built RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenade fired at the US Embassy in Athens on January 12, 2007, was supplied to the leftist Greek terrorist organization, Revolutionary Struggle, by the Albanian jihadist -linked group, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA/UCK). The confirmation of the link demonstrates the growing linkages between anti-Western leftist terrorist groups and anti-Western Islamist jihadi groups, and there is some suggestion that the reappearance of Revolutionary Struggle may have been prompted directly by support received from the cash-rich KLA. The KLA...

The war in the former Yugoslavia ended eight years ago but illegal arms trade and training of Islamic terrorists continues across the Balkans, particularly in Bosnia and Kosovo currently administered by EU / UN Missions. Reports of such developments came also from Gregory Copley. In his article “Strong warning indicators for new surge in European Islamic terrorism” he says that, “Intelligence sources in the Balkans and Middle East indicate that the Iranian and Osama bin Laden terrorist networks, assets and alliances built up in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Albania, Macedonia, Southern Serbia and elsewhere in the Balkans are preparing for significant new...

BELGRADE -- Belgrade war crimes prosecution believes KLA’s Orahovac group is responsible for the 1998 deaths of 25 Serbs in Kosovo. Prosecution spokesman Bruno Vekaric told B92 that the Belgrade District Court War Crimes prosecution considers Sinan Morina, currently in custody, as one of the persons responsible for the crime. The murdered Kosovo Serbs, whose remains were identified last year, lived in the villages of Opterusa and Retimlje, Orahovac municipality. The prosecution suspects that the crime took place in the nights between July 17 and 19, 1998. The victims were forced out of their homes, subjected to beatings, stripped of...

AS the war in Afghanistan goes on, the ghost of interventions past sits in a courtroom in The Hague. America can drop tons of explosives and send in the Marines to fight Taliban terrorism. But when the Serbs confronted a similar menace, they were demonized and bombed for 78 days, and had a province wrested from them and presented to Osama bin Laden's Balkan brigade. Slobodan Milosevic has been charged with complicity to commit genocide and crimes against humanity. Before the travesty is over, he will doubtless be convicted of running the rail line to Auschwitz. The former Yugoslav president...

Are the cases of missing persons in Kosovo science fiction or consciously closed files? Unexpectedly for many Kosovo crisis observers, proliferation of terrorism and violence resulted with huge number of cases of missing and kidnapped civilians, mostly non-Albanians (especially Serbs): in the summer of 1998, spring 1999 and during 2000. Actually, last reported kidnappings occurred in 2004. Although such acts of terror were well known to local population and local authorities, eccentric doubts could be summarized with only one question: If victims were held in hidden prisons and if after some time they were executed, where are the bodies? Searches,...

Former KLA Chief of Staff admits that the KLA did in some situations order the civilians to move out of some areas of Kosovo for reasons of safety. He described a case when the villagers of Belanica decided to stay in their homes until the arrival of the Serbian troops and police, despite the KLA orders As his examination-in-chief drew to a close, former KLA Chief of Staff Bislim Zyrapi admitted that in some situations the KLA had ordered civilians to move out of certain areas. The defense of the six Serbian officials charged with crimes in Kosovo has been...