Posted on 02/21/2008 11:04:42 AM PST by 11th_VA
BELGRADE, Serbia - Serb rioters broke into the U.S. Embassy Thursday and set fire to an office after a massive protest against Kosovo's independence that drew an estimated 150,000 people.
Masked attackers broke into the building, which has been closed this week, and tried to throw furniture from an office. A blaze broke out inside one of the offices and parts of the facade also caught fire.
Authorities drove armored jeeps down the street and fired tear gas to clear the crowd. The protesters dispersed into side streets where they continued clashing with authorities.
The neighboring Croatian Embassy also was attacked by the same group of protesters.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack strongly urged the Serbian government to protect the U.S. Embassy. He said the U.S. ambassador was at his home and was in contact with U.S. officials.
More than a dozen nations have recognized Kosovo's declaration of independence on Sunday, including the United States, Britain, France and Germany.
But the declaration by Kosovo's ethnic Albanian leadership has been rejected by Serbia's government and the ethnic Serbians who populate northern Kosovo. Russia, China and numerous other nations have also condemned the declaration, saying it sets a precedent that separatist groups around the world will seek to emulate.
Kosovo, which is 90 percent ethnic Albanian, has not been under Belgrade's control since 1999, when NATO launched airstrikes to halt a Serbian crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists. A U.N. mission has governed Kosovo since, with more than 16,000 NATO troops and KFOR, a multiethnic force, policing the province.
But Serbia — and Kosovo's Serbs, who make up less than 10 percent of Kosovo's population — refuse to give up Kosovo, a territory considered the ancient cradle of Serbs' state and religion.
Earlier Thursday, police estimated that about 150,000 people had attended a rally in the Serbian capital. The crowd waved Serbian flags and carried signs reading "Stop USA terror." One group set fire to a red-and-black Albanian flag.
The U.S. embassy in Belgrade burns after masked attackers broke into the building and set an office on fire at the end of a massive protest against Western-backed Kosovo independence, in the Serbian capital, Thursday, Feb. 21, 2008. More than 150,000 Serbs gathered at the rally vowing to retake the territory which is viewed as Serbia's religious and national heartland. (AP Photo)
Believe me, most Americans here are in agreement with you.
And, as for the rest of you neo-crusaders, this War on Terror is not against Islam. It’s against fascism.
It breaks my heart to see those pictures. It was all so unnecessary. They burned our embassy because we betrayed them one too many times. God help us all, this will be nearly impossible to fix with out His help.
You don't.
Or won't.
one of the best posts I have read sir/madam
we have no dealings with Kosovo and if we had then it should be helping the serbs against readical islam instead clinton thinks it’;s a good idea to help radical islam, the left stays silent, wesley clark is treated a go at being president and now Bush wants the set up of a muslim country
instead clinton and clark should be at the hague with war crime charges, Bush should be gone today for his incompetence of this and the open border .
So let me get this right
we go to war against radical islam in Iraq and afghanistan yet we leave our southern border open and we give radical islam a new country for them to spread and operate
unf###believable abnd to thin my wife helped Bush to get elected.
Time to help the serbs not go against them as we need all the allies we can get
Nope, it's against islam.
You are an islamic sympathizer.
I think so too. It was all designed in advance, actually.
I just can’t get the reasoning behind it except possibly in one article I saw a Brit saying that Kosovo could be a source of electricity for much of Europe.
I think the only legal way is through the UN Security Council and Russia will not budge on it. Bush maybe playing the old “we support you knowing others won’t” game.
Milosevic has been dead for several years now and Serbia has had a democratic government for 6 years. The current president, Boris Tadic, was even trained at the International Republican Institute, where John McCain has been the Chairman for the last 16 years.
Milosevic didn't "empty out their jails and take the criminals in" -- we did. A year ago this month, one of them shot up a shopping mall in Utah. Last May two of them tried to take out a military base at Ft. Dix.
Yeah, we are friggin' geniuses of diplomacy!
You mean recognizing a democratic vote for independence?
What’s wrong with that?
Easy there.
And sadly a great deal of islam is also fascist today.
Thank you. Can they prove it? Not that it will make any difference to the State Department idiots. They have their own playbook and agenda.
And Woodrow Wilson
I don’t see anything psychotic about this mob striking out in the only way they can at a foreign power that has just stolen their land in violation of international law and the UN Resolution which had ended the last war. Over there they remember us as the people who bombed their TV station, civilian trains, bridges, water supplies, and chemical factories. We are now the people that have given away the heart of their country to their historic enemies. Of course they hate us and I can’t blame them for striking out when their government seems powerless to defend them against us.
I'm with you. It seems needlessly destabilizing of the region, pointlessly antagonistic to Russia, and despite the stupid self-defeating posture of the EU, does Europe no favors.
It encourages a trend though, of supporting the splintering off of microstates(E Timor, Gaza, "Palestine"), inflaming ethnic enclaves everywhere, and to what end one can only guess. What of the Kurds, finally? This cannot bode well for more consequential nations, like us, when indigenous separatists groups begin to stir.
When you are standing on someone else's land and you ethnically cleanse everyone who won't vote for you, plenty!
I haven’t read all the posts, probably only about half and I agree. I had Fox News on when my kids came home from school and heard whomever keep saying how everything will be fine, and after the ethnic cleansing that took place in the 90s blah blah blah, my kids were worried that I was going to have a heart attack by screaming at the TV.
I’m not shocked by what’s going on now and I support the Serbs, just like I did back in the 90’s. I don’t support the attack on our embassy, but understand it. I am shocked and disappointed by our Administration this time, especially the recognition of Independence. We’re on the wrong side this time just like we were back in the 90’s. It doesn’t make sense from my knowledge of this situation, region, etc.
Bookmark
I just hjope so but after watching themedia over this then the people at the media are clueless
people in this country need to realise that the serb army just didn’t go into Kosovo because they didn’t like muslims they went in because muslims were takiing serb lands away , burning churches and killing serbs in a massive scale etc
the public needs to know this and also know that just because it is not being covered by the media then it doesn’t mean it’;s not happening
I always remeber ammanpour reporting the plight yet never reported the plight before that of thousands of serbs escaping muslim ehtnic cleansing
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.