Free Republic

The great majority of Kosovar Albanians take pride in their reputation as the most pro-American Muslims in the world. Their Sunni Islam is conventional and moderate, and spiritual Sufism is a powerful force among the believers. Since 2009, however, a serious effort has been visible in the Balkan republic to turn Kosovar Islam in the direction of Wahhabism, the ultrafundamentalist sect that inspires al Qaeda. The meddling is coming mainly from neighboring Macedonia, where Albanians and Muslims are recognized officially as minorities, and the Islamic clerical apparatus has come under Arab control. Kosovo defines itself constitutionally as a secular state,...

A report Saturday said that the United States was planning to intervene militarily in Syria, with or without United Nations authorization, if the killing in the country continued. A senior American official quoted in the London-based Al-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper said that the action would be based on the UN intervention in Kosovo several years ago: Establishment of a beachhead and carving out an area that was off-limits to forces controlled by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, where refugees could come to flee Assad's troops, and which could be used as aforward base to reduce Assad's hold on the country, and eventually...

Israel’s position on Kosovo is a matter of vital national interest on which no government should ever compromise.Photo by Reuters February 17 marks the fourth anniversary of Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia. The UDI has been recognized since by the United States and its key NATO partners, as well as 80-odd other countries. The majority of the world’s sovereign states have refused to do so, however, including two permanent Security Council powers (Russia and China), two budding giants (Brasil and India), five European Union members (including Spain) – and Israel. Successive Israeli governments have come under pressure from...

By FOUAD AJAMI The bloodshed and the brutality of the dictatorship in Syria are at long last beginning to challenge the passivity of the Obama administration. The word is out that the Pentagon has launched a "scoping exercise" to determine what could be done should the president want to respond to the Syrian catastrophe. For months, the administration pursued the mirage of a United Nations Security Council condemnation of Damascus, when there was no chance that Russia and China would go for it. The administration persisted even though a similar effort last October ended in failure. There was no need...

The mainstream media will spend ten days losing their ever-loving minds blaming a Sarah Palin campaign map a killer never saw for that killer’s actions, but this news about a confessed terrorist admitting that a clip from Brian De Palma’s “Redacted” “prompted” him to murder two American airmen gets buried at the bottom of a Salt Lake City newspaper article: [Arid] Uka gave a teary confession as his Frankfurt state court trial opened in August, saying that the night before the attack he had seen a video on Facebook that purported to show American soldiers raping a teenage Muslim girl....

<p>BERLIN (AP) — Germany's Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich is honoring two Americans for helping apprehend an Islamic extremist who attacked a U.S. Air Force bus last year and killed two airmen.</p> <p>Friedrich was to present the Federal Cross of Merit on Monday to Staff Sgt. Trevor Brewer and a civilian airport employee, both of whom chased the suspect after the March 2nd shooting, helping police arrest him at the scene.</p>

(TIRANA) - Albania on Thursday slammed calls from a Kosovo hardline opposition leader to temporarily block the border with Serbia as a way of barring Serb products from entering the breakaway territory. Albania's foreign ministry said in a statement that the attempt to block the border was contrary to constructive efforts to make Kosovo a democratic state and multi-ethnic society. "The use of nationalist and pseudo-patriotic rhetoric" will not help key goals of the Albanians in both Kosovo and Albania to progress towards integration into the European Union, or new recognitions of Kosovo's independence, the ministry warned. Albin Kurti, a...

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 Kosovo-born man was charged with plotting to attack Tampa-area nightclubs and a sheriff’s office with bombs and an assault rifle to avenge wrongs done to Muslims, federal authorities said Monday. According to a federal complaint, 25-year-old Sami Osmakac recorded an eight-minute video shortly before his arrest explaining why he wanted to bring terror to his “victims’ hearts” in the Tampa Bay area. Osmakac is a naturalized American citizen born in Kosovo, then part of the former Yugoslavia in eastern Europe. In the video, Osmakac is seen cross-legged on the floor with a pistol in his hand and an AK-47...

ORLANDO, Fla. - A 25-year-old Muslim man born in Kosovo was charged on Monday with trying to obtain explosives and firearms to attack Florida businesses and a police station, authorities said. Sami Osmakac, a naturalized US citizen who was born in Kosovo - a disputed Balkan state once a part of the former Yugoslavia that declared its independence from Serbia in 2008 - was charged with one count of attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction. He was arrested Saturday night after taking possession from an undercover FBI agent of what he believed to be explosives and firearms, according...

DJAKOVICA -- An 82-year-old woman - one of only five remaining Serbs in the town of Djakovica in Kosovo - has died, it has been reported. Jela Mijovich and four other elderly women were the only Serbs left in the town after the March 2004 pogrom perpetrated by ethnic Albanians. They all lived in a rebuilt structure located in the yard of a Serbian Orthodox monastery in the town. Prior to 1999, several thousand Serbs lived in Djakovica. The four elderly women who still remain there live under 24-hour protection of the Kosovo police (KPS). One of them, 64-year-old Vasiljka...

The world court ruled Monday that Greece was wrong to block a bid by the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) to join NATO in 2008 because of a long-running dispute over the fledgling country's use of the name “Macedonia.” In a 15-1 ruling, the court found that Greece's veto breached a provisional 1995 deal under which Greece had agreed not to block membership of the country in international organizations if it used the name FYROM, while the matter was submitted to further negotiations. More than 15 years later, mediation over the name is still ongoing. The victory is partly...

"Police in Kosovo are investigating who sprayed swastikas on dozens of tombstones in a Jewish cemetery recently restored by American and Kosovan students, a spokesman said Thursday. Brahim Sadrija said police had sealed off the cemetery in the capital, Kosovo, and are looking for clues. The vandalism is believed to have happened Tuesday. … In June, a group of students from Dartmouth College in New Hampshire and their peers from the American University in Kosovo restored the neglected cemetery by clearing debris from around the graves and cutting overgrown grass. Rabbi Edward S. Boraz of the college’s Roth Center for...

Georgia National Guard soldiers stack behind a wall during training at the Joint Multinational Readiness Center in Hohenfels, Germany, Nov. 9, 2011. National Guard soldiers from several states -- including the Wisconsin Army National Guard's 157th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade -- are part of the KFOR 15 rotation preparing to deploy to Kosovo in upcoming months. U.S. Army photo by Lynn Davis WASHINGTON, Nov. 29, 2011 – A senior U.S. military leader in Europe condemned recent violence against NATO troops in Kosovo just as a Wisconsin Army National Guard unit prepares to take command of the 15th rotation of peacekeeping forces...

<p>Serbs opposed to the independence of Kosovo attacked North Atlantic Treaty Organization peacekeeping troops in the tiny Balkan state Monday with guns and Molotov cocktails, wounding dozens, the alliance said, in an escalation of violence that could set back Belgrade's long-running effort to join the European Union.</p>

Tensions run high on Serbia's border with northern Kosovo, as neither of the conflicting sides is prepared to rule out a further escalation of violence. ­Local Serbs say NATO forces are to blame, for breaking an agreement by trying to remove a barricade blocking the way to one of a number of disputed checkpoints. The move prompted violent clashes that left dozens injured on both sides. Last night in Northern Kosovo passed without violence though this does not mean that the source of tensions has disappeared. On November 23 the NATO’s KFOR forces attempted to remove a barricade put up...

KLA Detention Camps In my late December essay in 2010 called Amorality of US Kosovo Policy: Friends with the Snake I have published reactions to the Council of Europe (CoE) 27-page report authored by the Swiss-Italian politician, senator and prosecuting lawyer Dick Marty. The report, after his two-year investigation, claimed that the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) thugs headed by the current Kosovo prime minister Hashim Thaci, known as the “Snake,” abducted mostly Kosovo Serbs but also some Albanian so called “collaborators,” transported them to northern Albania, murdered them, extracted their organs like the kidneys, and sold them on the black...

BELGRADE -- Oliver Ivanović says he does not rule out the possibility that Serbs from northern Kosovo may "declare independence" of that part of the province. Oliver Ivanović (Beta, file) This could happen if the West continues to insist on the implementation of the agreement on customs stamps and other issues in Priština's favor, the Ministry for Kosovo state secretary said in Belgrade on Friday, after a meeting of the Parliamentary Committee on Kosovo and Metohija. Ethnic Albanians in Kosovo unilaterally declared independence in early 2008, but Serbia rejected it as an illegal act of secession. Serb north of the...

Source: Beta, Interfax MOSCOW -- The possible arrival of Serbs to Russia, says Russian ambassador to NATO Dmitry Rogozin, would represent "a treasure" for his country. Dmitry Rogozin (Tanjug, file) Rogozin spoke after announcements that some Serbs from Kosovo, faced with the ongoing crisis in the province, would seek Russian citizenship. But the diplomat welcomed even the idea that they might move to his country - which is experiencing "great demographic problems". Those Serbs would easily adapt to the new surroundings, "and there should be no issues with employment", according to Rogozin. He also added: "Serbs from Kosovo should be...

BELGRADE -- More than 1,000 Serbs have been murdered in Kosovo since June 1999 - when the war ended and international forces were deployed in the province. This is according to Assistant Minister for Kosovo Kruna Kaličanin, who spoke in Belgrade on Thursday. She also noted that "almost nobody" was charged and put on trial for those crimes. The international community, in the meanwhile, showed a tendency to "minimize" the importance of Serb victims, Kaličanin added. These statements came a day after a Serb man was shot and killed, while two others were wounded in Kosovska Mitrovica. Kaličanin also accused...