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To: yarddog
I will admit I know next to nothing about Albanian Muslims yet feel confident that you are totally wrong about them hating Osama. If you are right, they are the only group of Muslims I have ever heard of who do hate terrorists, at least any large group of them.

Yarddog, in my military career I've had literally years on the ground in Africa, the Middle East, and the Balkans. I've spent lots of time with lots of Muslims, to include in both friendly and extremely unfriendly circumstances. First, when you hear Albanian--do not automatically think "Muslim". While, the Bektashi and Sunni added together make the majority in Kosovo, there is also a significant Catholic minority--in fact the elected Kosovar Albanian president is a Catholic (Rugova). In Albania proper, the religious diversity is even more pronounced--in addtion to Sunni, Bektashi, and Catholics, there is a significant minority of Albanian Orthodox. Both the elected President and Prime Minister of Albania are Christians and life is very secular.

Second, although there are a few exceptions, the Albanian Muslims are much, much more Albanian than they are Muslim. They are anti-Serb, but its because the Serbs are Serbs--not because they are Christians. That is why Albanian Catholics are part of the KLA and why Albanian Christian churches are unharmed.

In fact, because of their pro-American stance, in the only documented instance of an Al Qaeda link-up with the KLA, the KLA threw out bin laden's emissary and would not even accept the weapons he brought:

"The spotlight fell on bin Laden in Albania with the arrest in 1998 of a French passport holder, Claude Kader, who was believed to be of Middle Eastern origin. He confessed to being a member of one of bin Ladens groups and told investigators he had been sent to give weapons to the guerrillas of the Kosovo Liberation Army, then beginning their war against the Serbs. The KLA had promised US officials it would not co-operate with fundamentalists. Mr Kader said the KLA had turned him down and that he had returned to Albania, still with his weapons."

75 posted on 05/30/2004 1:23:21 PM PDT by mark502inf
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To: mark502inf
That is why Albanian Catholics are part of the KLA and why Albanian Christian churches are unharmed.

Very nice that they do not harm Albanian Christian churches, very humane. How many of them, five or ten?

77 posted on 05/30/2004 1:30:03 PM PDT by A. Pole ("Stating the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men." George Orwell)
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