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NATO Detains Three Ethnic Albanians

Tuesday, August 13, 2002

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia -- NATO-led peacekeepers have detained three more ethnic Albanians as part of an ongoing crackdown on extremism threatening the region's stability, an official said Tuesday.

The three men were stopped and taken into custody at a vehicle checkpoint late Monday on the main road linking Kosovo with neighboring Macedonia, said Wing Cmdr. Drew Anderson, a spokesman for the NATO-led peacekeeping force in Kosovo.

Three other men were detained earlier Monday in Kosovo's capital, Pristina.

Anderson said Tuesday that all six in custody were ethnic Albanians. He said there was no conclusive evidence that the men belonged to any type of paramilitary organization working within Kosovo.

Officials declined to reveal the nature of the alleged illegal activities.

In a similar raid last week, U.S. peacekeepers detained 13 ethnic Albanians in eastern Kosovo, saying they hoped to disrupt extremist activities along the border with Macedonia. Most of those held were soon released, officials said.

The detentions came just weeks before neighboring Macedonia is set to hold parliamentary elections - the first vote since the end of an ethnic Albanian insurgency last year. Ethnic Albanian rebels fought for six months to win more rights for their people, who make up one-third of Macedonia's population of 2 million.

During that conflict, Macedonian authorities often complained that NATO failed to do enough to prevent ethnic Albanians in Kosovo from supporting their ethnic kin in Macedonia.

Kosovo remains part of Yugoslavia, but has been administered by the United Nations and NATO since June 1999, when an alliance air war halted a crackdown by Serb forces on independence-minded ethnic Albanians.