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An indication of what lies ahead for the Balkans occurred recently in Novi Pazar, when Wahhabi fanatics successfully destroyed a concert held by a renowned Balkan ethno-music orchestra that appeals to people from many countries and ethnicities. The violence was brazen and highly alarming, according to Belgrade’s B-92 which described the occurrence thus: “…ten young men donning long beards, short pants and white hats broke up a concert of the Balkanika orchestra. The hooligans were dressed like members of the vehabit [sic] movement. They climbed up onto the stage and threw around the instruments that were set up for the...

The coming of the micro-states By Fred Weir | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor MOSCOW - As goes Montenegro, so goes Kosovo, Transdniestria, and South Ossetia? As Montenegro officially declared independence this weekend, accepting the world's welcome into the community of nations, a handful of obscure "statelets" are demanding the same opportunity to choose their own destinies. In the latest example, Transdniestria, a Russian-speaking enclave that won de facto independence in the early 1990s, declared last week that it will hold a Montenegro-style referendum in September as part of its campaign for statehood. Experts fear that many "frozen conflicts"...

Kosovo Prime Minister Agim Ceku has says independence for mostly ethnic-Albanian Kosovo of Serbia's government in Belgrade is near. "A great dream of independence is close and it is only months away," said Ceku Monday in his regular weekly address in Kosovo, Serbia's southern province whose population of 1.8 million is 90 percent ethnic-Albanian........

SERBIA was plunged into a political crisis last night after Brussels suspended talks leading to EU membership as punishment for failing to arrest one of the most wanted war criminals in Europe. The European Commission said that it was halting negotiations on closer links with Serbia after the deadline to deliver Ratko Mladic to the Hague war crimes tribunal passed on April 30 with the fugitive still in hiding. Relations between Belgrade and the international community plunged to new lows as Carla del Ponte, the chief war crimes prosecutor at the UN, declared that she had been misled by the...

Serbia must choose between its past and its present How hard can it be to arrest a man recognised wherever he goes, in a country roughly the size of Scotland? Vojislav Kostunica, the Serbian Prime Minister, has asked the international community to believe that if the man in question does not want to be found, the answer is, effectively, “impossible”. This answer is not acceptable. It is entirely appropriate that Belgrade’s failure to surrender Ratko Mladic to the UN war crimes tribunal as promised led yesterday to the suspension of talks with the EU on possible Serbian membership. Mr Kostunica...

Behind every hero stands a traitor.” So goes an old saying in the Balkans. As renowned commentator on the Balkan nations Fitzroy Maclean observed, the difficulty is to determine which is which. Was Milosevic a hero or a traitor to his fellow Serbs and the peoples of old Yugoslavia? Milosevic came to power as rumbles started to vibrate apart the Iron Curtain that had protected postwar Yugoslavia, under the strong-willed resistance by Marshal Tito until his death in 1980, from incursion by the Soviet Union. Milosevic was elected president of Serbia in 1989. When Germany united, East with West, following...

PODGORICA, Serbia-Montenegro -- Police seized a truckload of weapons in Bioce, a town near Podgorica, local media reported on Thursday (9 March). Some reports suggest the material was headed to the Middle East, others suggest Albania. Serbia-Montenegro Army Chief of Staff General Ljubisa Jokic confirmed that the weapons were confiscated, but stressed that the transaction by the Jugoimport-Mont company, a mediator in arms sales, was legal. Another official said that while the necessary paperwork was issued, the problem arose when the company changed the vehicle and personnel transporting the weapons. (Pobjeda, Blic, Vijesti - 10/03/06; B92, RTCG, Beta - 09/03/06)

A Turkish Rambo takes on the U.S. — and moviegoers are loving itBy PELIN TURGUT / ISTANBUL UMIT BEKTAS / REUTERS The anti-U.S. film Valley of the Wolves Iraq has caught Turkey's eye Sunday, Feb. 05, 2006The movie high jinks of a Turkish Rambo who single-handedly takes on U.S. forces in lawless northern Iraq are filling cinemas across Turkey, America's only predominantly Muslim nato ally. Valley of the Wolves Iraq, which is set to break Turkish box-office records, shows U.S. soldiers in Iraq as they raid a wedding, machine-gun the guests, and take survivors to a prison where a Jewish...

Denmark’s government, her media and the public at large, continue to defy the prevalent spirit of Western decrepitude by refusing to eat humble pie over some half-dozen mildly satirical cartoons of Muhammad, the inventor of Islam. Every American by now has heard about those cartoons, but very few have actually seen, thanks to our mainstream media’s strange view of what actually constitutes “all the news fit to print.” The cartoons, originally published in the Jyllands-Posten, have prompted a fresh round of anti-Western rage in the Muslim world and among Muslim immigrants in Europe. It looks like there will be no...

Croatian tycoon Joso Marovic (known for his nickname "Likas Tudjman" after late Croatian presidendt)is acuitted of rape charge by ruling of judge Branko Milanovic. Marovic was acused of raping US basketball player Ilisha Jarret who played for Croatian team. Judge ruled that "There was no rape since act was done annaly with finger, and for rape sexual organ penetration is nascessery" and "Casa was most similar to handshake". "Finger and anus arn`t sex organs, thereafter there was no rape". Accuited Marovic bursted into her hotellroom and pushed his finger up Ilisha`s anus, girl maneged to throw him out of hers...

According to the data from the investigators, radical Islamic organization Al-Asifa from the Balkans is involved in this terrorist act. It unites Slavic adherents of the Islamic fundamentalism and natives of the Arab countries, who settled in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) and in Croatia after the 1992-95 war. According to the Israeli secret services, during this war the major part of the present members of Al-Asifa served in the "Al - Mojahid" and "Kataeb Talaat Yasin" divisions. They were a part of the Bosnian Muslim army (by the way, Israel secretly supported the Bosnian Serbs at that time).

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A Bosnian Serb fugitive sentenced for crimes committed during the Bosnian war and wanted by a UN war crimes court has been arrested in Argentina. Police say Milan Lukic, who has been on the run for more than five years, was arrested in Buenos Aires. He was indicted by the UN's war crimes tribunal for crimes said to have been carried out during the Bosnian war. He is also wanted in Serbia, where he was sentenced in absentia to 20 years in prison for war crimes. 'Reign of terror'In 2003, a court in Belgrade found Lukic and three other men...

Archbishop of Serbian Orthodox Church Sentenced to Prison in Macedonia Posted: Saturday, June 25 , 2005, 21:33 (UK) Archbishop of Serbian Orthodox Church, Jovan (Zoran Vranisskovski) of Ohrid was sentenced to 18 months in prison by the Macedonian Court of Appeal, Forum 18 has reported. Archbishop Jovan was charged of "inciting national, racial and religious hatred, schism and intolerance." The Archbishop commented on the situation: "When they imprisoned an archbishop of a church in the 21st century - merely for serving his people - what else can you say about the system and the state?" The archbishop is due to...

Chuck Morse's latest book, "The Nazi Connection to Islamic Terrorism, Adolf Hitler and Haj Amin al-Husseini," provides the clearest, most incisive history of how Islamo-fascism and Jihad terrorism have become the dominant political philosophy in the Arab world. It is the untold story of how Nazism took root in the Islamic world through the untiring efforts of the mufti of Jerusalem, whose aim it was to destroy the Jews in Palestine. Morse writes: The Nazi Holocaust appears to have kicked into high gear on Nov. 25, 1941, during a Berlin meeting between the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini...

Glen Jenvey worked for several military attachés covering terrorist groups, including al-Qaida and their members in Britain. His stings led to the capture of Abu Hamza al-Masri, a major terrorist and multiple other terrorists. He has been profiled and interviewed in major media across the globe, including in the US, UK, Russia, India, etc. Neil Doyle wrote a book entitled "Terror Tracker" about Mr. Jenvey. ... Glen Jenvey: The group is linked directly to terrorists associated with Abu Hamza, who's in jail due in large part to my efforts for British intelligence. The group is also tied to other clerics...

New eyewitnesses are helping to piece together a crime that still awaits justice. By IWPR reporters in Surdulica and Belgrade Eyewitness accounts obtained by IWPR contain dramatic new evidence of how police working for Slobodan Milosevic burned truckloads of ethnic Albanian corpses in a factory in southern Serbia during the 1999 NATO conflict. Natasa Kandic, director of the Humanitarian Law Centre, HLC, first revealed the grisly secrets of the Mackatica aluminum complex, near Surdulica, in the Pcinj district of southern Serbia, last December. In an article in daily Danas newspaper on December 24, 2004, she said the factory's blast furnaces...

PETERSEN REFLECTS ON BELGRADE VISIT| 14:10 -> 17:47 March 30 | B92, Beta BELGRADE, PRISTINA, ATHENS -- Wednesday – Kosovo governor Soeren Jessen Petersen met with newly-appointed Kosovo Prime Minister Bajram Kosumi today, after spending all of Sunday and Monday meeting with Serbian officials in Belgrade. Commenting on his Belgrade visit, Petersen said that Belgrade finally understands that only dialogue with the Kosovo government regarding Kosovo’s final status can lead to positive processes in the region. Petersen briefed Kosumi on everything that was discussed in Belgrade. “It is good that Belgrade has accepted the fact that discussion for the status...

IRANA (Reuters) - Albania will increase the number of its soldiers in Iraq to 120 from the current 70, a government spokesman said on Friday. The decision takes effect in April, when soldiers currently serving a six-month stint under U.S. command return home. Albania has been a staunch supporter of the United States since Washington led a NATO bombing campaign against Serb troops accused of killing and expelling ethnic Albanian civilians in Kosovo. Albanian public opinion supports its contribution to the U.S.-led force in Iraq, where two Albanian-born U.S. Marines have been killed. (File photo) Two Albanians in traditional...

Nato's top commander in Europe, US Gen James Jones, has been meeting officials in Romania and Bulgaria, exploring possible future military bases for US forces in the Balkans. He says such strategically-positioned bases would enhance Nato's capabilities as the US adjusts its post-Cold War priorities. The BBC's South-East Europe analyst, Gabriel Partos, examines the US plans. The commander of United States forces in Europe, Gen James Jones, has been inspecting military sites in Bulgaria which the US might use in future as bases when it redeploys troops from western Europe. Gen Jones' visit, and a series of talks in Romania,...