Posted on 02/11/2005 11:44:31 PM PST by Jane_N
NINE ethnic Albanians have been sentenced to up to 15 years in prison by a Serbian court for the murder of a policeman and "terrorist activities".
Two men - Llirim Jakuppi and Beshim Tahiri, both tried in absentia - were handed 15-year sentences for the March 2002 murder of fellow ethnic Albanian Selever Fazliu, a member of Serbia's special police, the Beta news agency reported. Another seven ethnic Albanians were handed between one and seven year jail terms for "conspiring to form a terrorist group", the court said.
The nine were said to belong to the Albanian National Army (ANA), a shadowy group that claims to be fighting to create a greater Albania including Albanian-populated Kosovo and parts of Macedonia and southern Serbia.
The southern Serbian region, better known as the Presevo valley, has a large Albanian population and was the scene of clashes from 2000 to 2001 between Serb forces and the separatist rebels of the ethnic Albanian guerrilla group the Liberation army of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac (LAPMB).
Belgrade officials say many of the former guerrilla fighters have since joined the ANA.
Declared a terrorist organisation by the United Nations mission in neighbouring Kosovo, the ANA has claimed responsibility for a number of attacks on Serbian police and army targets in the past two years.
"a greater Albania"
not unlike "Greater Syria" politics in the Middle East -- and like it, Moslem in origin.
They fought the Bosniaks by attacking the civilian population, burning their towns, blowing up their mosques and they lost.
They fought the Croats by attacking the civilian population, burning their towns, blowing up their churches and they lost.
They fought the Kosovar Albanians by attacking the civilian population, burning their towns, blowing up their mosques and they lost.
In Presevo they used police and small units, targeted operations based on hard intell, respected the rights of the local population, and the UCPMB never got traction. And now the ANA is nothing more than a nuisance that's being hunted down not just by the Serbs, but by the Makos, KFOR and the Albanians.
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