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A visitor touches the monument to the Kosovo Albanian guerrillas killed during the 1998-99 war in Serbia's southern province, in the village of Morina, 50 kilometres (30 miles) northwest of the capital Pristina, June 20, 2006. The U.N. Security Council is due to hear the report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo, on Tuesday, REUTERS/Hazir Reka

Austrian soldiers which are part of KFOR received threats recently because a Kosovo Albanian was arrested in Vienna. This information was published by Austrian agency APA. Threats were sent by the disbanded Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) which demands release of the arrested Albanian. Rudolf Golija, spokesperson of Austrian police, confirmed that a 49 year old Albanian was arrested. He did not want to say anything about the threats against the Austrian soldiers which are part of KFOR. Kosovo Albanian which last Saturday came to Vienna airport “Schwechat” on a plane flying from Tirana, was arrested because during passport control police...

The trial of three former Kosovo Liberation Army members this week heard from a former British military attaché to Belgrade, who spoke about the extent of fighting in Kosovo in 1998 and how the KLA dealt with suspected “collaborators”. Fatmir Limaj, Isak Musliu and Haradin Bala are accused of running a prison camp in the village of Lapusnik from May to July 1998, in which Serbs and suspected Albanian collaborators were held captive, beaten and often murdered. For the charges in question to be legally valid, prosecutors must prove that an armed conflict existed in Kosovo during the period in...

Remember Kosovo? By Cliff Kincaid | December 28, 2004 Clinton's policy was not to bomb those terrorists but to support them and bomb the Christian Serbs. AIM put together a list of the most underreported or buried stories of 2004, and one of them was the resurgence of anti-Serb, anti-Christian violence in Kosovo. Dozens were killed and more Christian churches were destroyed there. Kosovo got some attention near the end of the year when newspapers covered the fact that a former leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army, the KLA, became prime minister in a new Kosovo-based government. A story in...

In the negotiations that brought Macedonia’s 2001 war to an end, Albanian militants were amnestied and took up new jobs in the state administration - some even in the ministry of defense. With the farcical situation now unfolding in Kondovo, you have the lunacy of the same people who benefited in such a way going AWOL from their jobs, and now showing up in black uniforms in the hills and demanding to be amnestied again. Yes indeed, the Balkans is truly an exercise in pointless, futile cyclic idiocy. But the militant demands – if not met, the gunmen promise to...

A former rebel commander who has been questioned by United Nations war crimes investigators has been elected prime minister by Kosovo's parliament. Ramush Haradinaj, an ethnic Albanian who led Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) units, won by a vote of 72 to three. The decision is expected to anger the Serbian government, which wants him to be indicted for war crimes. Mr Haradinaj has twice been questioned over his role in the 1998-1999 rebel insurgency against Serb rule. It is alleged that KLA units under Mr Haradinaj's command murdered moderate Albanians and Serbs living in Kosovo, which is now under international...

German MPs examining their army and intelligence service in Kosovo before the ethnic violence in March want to know why they did not follow up a tapped telephone call in which an Albanian extremist urged his allies to prepare a "hot party". Senior German army officers used several internal reports after the violence flared to make assurances that they would have acted differently and been able to provide the necessary protection for Kosovo's Serb minority if they had had the slightest forewarning. But it has emerged that an imminent security threat may have been on their desks. A parliamentary commission...

The Hague tribunal is investigating Ramush Haradinaj, a man who could be Kosovo’s next prime minister. PRISTINA, Kosovo -- In a move that sent shockwaves through Kosovo’s political landscape, the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague has questioned the leader of the province’s third-largest political party, Ramush Haradinaj from the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (AAK), just as negotiations on the formation of a new government are entering a critical phase. Should the negotiations between the AAK and Kosovo’s largest party, the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK), succeed, Haradinaj has a good chance of even...

BURNING CHURCHES (HUMANITARIAN'S ANTHEM) MIDI: CLICK HERE for Burning Bridges (Curb/Schifrin) Christians all tried to warn me But I held my head up high All the time they warned me But I only passed them by They all tried to tell me But I guess I didn't care I turned my back and Left them standing there All the burning churches that have fallen after me All the murdered Christians and the burning monasteries Everyone I left behind each time I closed the door Burning churches lost forevermore Joey tried to help me find a soul A while ago When...

Dear Freepers, There has been some discussion on the FR board lately about the current violence in Kosovo. Being on-scene in the region, we wanted to share some insights on the current situation and its background- as well as potential future developments. Please continue to end of post for a collection of links to vital stories from our archive. yesterday's article begins: "...The seemingly spontaneous street war that erupted yesterday between Albanians and Serbs in Kosovo confirms exactly what kind of a ‘success’ the West has created in Kosovo. At least 22 people, including a French KFOR peacekeeper reported dead...

Kosovo's terrorists continue to wage war In the midst of conflicts in Southwest Asia and the Mid dle East, I cannot help but wonder: Whatever happened to the Balkans? We Americans spent more than a decade listening to and watching CNN and BBC clips of the war-torn region and the countless war crimes that had taken place at the hands of various ethnic groups. What about Kosovo? A 78-day bombing campaign was undertaken to "liberate Kosovo's ethnic Albanian population" from the hands of "terror-invoking Serbs." Why was there no media follow- up of the accomplishments of peace-loving and newly liberated...

SOFIA, Sept 4 (AFP) - The self-declared commander of the banned Albanian Liberation Army (ANA), Avdil Jakupi, Thursday threatened to launch a separatist war in Macedonia in an interview with Bulgaria's bTV private television. "Macedonia cannot be a state because Prime Minister Branko Crvenkovski is a criminal who is implicated in the murder of (slain Serbian prime minister Zoran) Djindjic", Jakupi told bTV by telephone. "Because of this we will rise up and start a war," the rebel, who is wanted by Macedonian police, added. "Macedonia must become a protectorate of Europe and the United States." ANA on Monday issued...

Kosovo Protection Corps faces uncomfortable questions about its members' activities - past and present. Amid repeated allegations of violent criminal activity, the Kosovo Protection Corps, heir to the KLA, is in desperate need for reform. Four years after the NATO intervention ended Serb rule in Kosovo, the reputation of the Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA, and its successor, the Kosovo Protection Corps, KPC, is once more being called into question. Recent events have done nothing to improve the standing of the KPC. Two men in KPC uniform and driving a KPC-marked vehicle were arrested on June 18 under suspicion of kidnapping...

June 24, 1999 | PRISTINA, Yugoslavia -- With the last Serbian troops now gone from Kosovo, the Kosovo Liberation Army is emerging as the successful liberator of the province, where the government of former Kosovo Albanian president Ibrohim Rugova failed. Hundreds of Kosovar Albanians now walk the streets of Pristina wearing newish KLA uniforms, the way Knicks jerseys show up on the playgrounds of New York. With the prominence of black berets and baseball-style KLA hats, one would think that the KLA had won the war, with mere assistance from NATO. The sign hanging from the highway near the south-central...

Shopping for Sniper RiflesBy STACY SULLIVAN hen a sniper began shooting down people in suburban Maryland and Virginia earlier this month, followed by possible copycat shootings on Long Island last weekend, I wondered why it hadn't happened sooner.For the past three years, I have been doing research for a book on how a group of Kosovar Albanian émigrés in New York City helped build a guerrilla army by raising money and buying and shipping high-powered rifles from the United States to the Balkans. In March 2001, I accompanied one of the key fund-raisers for the Kosovo Liberation Army to a...