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Defense & Foreign
Affairs Daily
Volume XXII, No.
50 Friday, March 19, 2004
Founded in 1972 Produced at least 200 times a year
©
2004, Global Information System, ISSA
Exclusive
Special Report
New Kosovo
Violence is Start of Predicted 2004 Wave of Islamist Operations: the
Strategic Ramifications
Analysis. By Gregory
R. Copley, Editor, GIS, with input from GIS Stations in Pristina,
Belgrade and elsewhere. The major
wave of violence instigated in the Kosovo region of Serbia on
beginning on about March 14, 2004, and escalating dramatically
through March 18, 2004, is the start of the forecast series of
unrest, guerilla warfare and terrorist activity planned by radical
Islamist leaders in Bosnia, Albania, Iran and in the Islamist areas
of Serbia, and directly linked with the various
al-Qaida-related
mujahedin and terrorist
cells in the area.
Attempts have already been made to blame the violence on the very
small Serbian population which remains in Kosovo, but this is not
credible, and nor has the Serbian Government shown any enthusiasm to
get involved in the situation.
Sources confirm that the violence, which began on March 17, 2004,
and continued to escalate through March 18, 2004, is not an isolated
expression of frustration, but, rather, part of a planned "season"
of unrest designed explicitly to pull US and Western strategic focus
away from Iraq, and to ensure that US and Western peacekeeping
forces ” which have been progressively diverted to Iraq operations
and away from Kosovo and Bosnia” will need to be held in the
Balkans. The purposes are multifold:
1. To remove US and Western focus on Iraq, thereby
relieving pressure on Iran's clerical leadership and helping to
ensure the retention of Iranian capability to link, via Iraq, with
Syria;
2. To demonstrate the failure of the Western "war
on terror" and specifically to discredit those Western leaders who
supported the war in the run-up to elections in the US and
Australia;
3. To create a climate of instability around the
Olympic Games, scheduled for August 2004 in Athens, and which
feature as a major target for unrest and terrorism;
4. To consolidate Islamist control over parts of
the Balkans, specifically the so-called "green transversala"1
belt which links the Adriatic Coast through Albania, FYR of
Macedonia, the Serbian Kosovo and Metohija region, the southern
Serbia/northern Montenegro Raska (Sandzak) region, through the
Gorazde Corridor into Bosnia, not only as a terrorist corridor but
also to facilitate a clear highway for narco-trafficking and
weapons shipments.
Significantly, the Serbian Government within the union of Serbia &
Montenegro, had, until the recent Serbian elections, attempted to
ignore the growing incitement to a new outbreak of violence and
unrest on the part of the Muslim community of southern Serbia (Raska)
and Kosovo because it did not wish to be seen to be drawing
attention to the growing Muslim agitation. However, this action
merely allowed the process to continue to build without any major
intelligence or policy focus on the problem. The issue was
compounded by the fact that two major international oversight bodies
” the Office of the High Representative (OHR) in Sarajevo, Bosnia,
and the German-controlled command of UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK)”
both sided with radical Islamists and known war-criminals also,
presumably, to avoid the appearance of being anti-Muslim.
The warnings of this wave of violence were explicitly clearly and
starkly forecast by GIS/Defense
& Foreign Affairs reports over the past year, and
specifically on October 15, 2003,
Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily,
in a report entitled Strong
Warning Indicators for New Surge in European Islamist Terrorism,
which noted:
Intelligence sources in the Balkans and Middle East
indicate that the Iranian and Osama bin Laden terrorist networks,
assets and alliances built up in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo,
Albania, Macedonia, Southern Serbia and elsewhere in the Balkans
are preparing for significant new slate of operations. Initial
operations in this "new slate" have already begun in Kosovo, and
are expected to expand in southern Serbia in late October and into
November 2003.
The intelligence, from a variety of primary sources
within the Islamist movements, points to:
1. Escalation of Islamist terrorist attacks on
Serb civilians within the predominantly Muslim region of Kosovo
and Metohija in the Serbian province of Kosovo;
2. Commencement during October-November 2003 of
seemingly-random bombings of public places, including schools,
in Muslim-dominated cities in the southern Serbian/northern
Montenegrin Raska Oblast
(this oblast, or
region” not a formal sub-state as in the Russian use of the word
"oblast"” is referred to by Islamists by its Turkish name,
Sandzak) as a prelude to wider violence in this area, and
eastern Montenegro, adjacent to the Albanian border and reaching
down to the Adriatic;
3. Coordination of incidents by the so-called
"Albanian National Army"” a current iteration of the Kosovo
Liberation Army (KLA, or UCK:
Ushtria Clirimtare e Kosoves,
in Albanian; OVK in Serbo-Croat)” in Kosovo and the former
Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia with activities in Raska, led by
the Bosnian radical Islamist party, SDA (Party of Democratic
Action) of Alija Izetbegovic, and all supported by Albanian
Government-approved/backed training facilities inside Albania,
close to the border with Serbian Kosovo;
4. Escalation of incidents ” including threats,
political action, terrorist action” within Bosnia-Herzegovina,
designed to further polarize the Serbian and Croat population
away from the Muslim population;
5. Eventual escalation of "incidents" to create a
"no-go" area for Serbian, Montenegrin, Republica Srpska security
forces and international peacekeepers in a swathe of contiguous
territory from the Adriatic through Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro,
Southern Serbia and Macedonia into Bosnia-Herzegovina,
effectively dissecting the Republica Srpska state (which is
within Bosnia-Herzegovina) at the Gorazde Corridor and isolating
Montenegro;
6. Using the extensive save-haven areas and
"no-go" zones created by the actions, undertake a range of
terrorist actions against targets in Greece ” which is
contiguous with Albania and (FYR) Macedonia” during (and
possibly before) the August 2004 Olympic Games. Specific
intelligence points to the fact that the Islamist groups have
already predetermined target opportunities during the Games.
News sources indicated on March 18, 2004, that NATO could dispatch
nearly 2,000 additional troops to Kosovo, including 750 from the
United Kingdom, to deal with the new unrest. As of March 18, 2004,
after only a few days of unrest, it was understood that 35 NATO
troops had been injured. Some 350 extra troops were already being
sent in, including US and Italians from Bosnia, as well as British
forces. The UK Government then announced it was sending 750 new
troops into Kosovo. At least 14 people had been reported killed in
Kosovo as a result of the new fighting, much of which centers around
the divided town of Mitrovica; hundreds have been injured.
A
crowd of Albanians, estimated at 3,000 strong, attacked the UN
police station in Mitrovica before crossing the city's main bridge
and heading into the Serbian side where there were exchanges of
machinegun fire and hand-grenades. The Albanian groups were seen to
be in possession of heavy automatic weapons and grenades. It had
been claimed that the Albanians had mobilized to attack Serbs who
had allegedly chased several boys into a river where three of them
were drowned, ostensibly in retaliation for an earlier (and
confirmed) drive-by shooting in which a Serbian youth was killed.
However, UNMIK spokesman Derek Chappell said on the night of March
18, 2004, that the survivor of the March 17, 2004, Ibar River
drowning had told his parents that he and three friends entered the
river alone and were immediately caught up in the heavy current. The
boy managed to reach the opposite bank of the river, but his three
companions were swept away. It was clear that the Albanian forces
were mobilized and ready for the assault and that the story about
the drownings was merely used as a convenient claim on which to base
the attacks.
But what seemed clear was the the German-run UNMIK forces were
totally unprepared for the outbreak, despite the warnings and
knowledge of Islamist plans for such actions. As a result, UN forces
were known to have withdrawn rather than protect Serb areas and
Serbian Orthodox churches, which were supposedly to be protected as
cultural heritage sites. The Kosovo Force (KFOR) units fared
somewhat better, using rubber bullets and tear gas, but they, too,
were unprepared for the scale of the operations conducted by the
Albanians.
A
German spokesman had, in recent months, made clear anti-Serbian
remarks, highlighting the biased nature of the supposedly impartial
international force supposedly administering Kosovo with the support
of KFOR military units and police provided by donor nations [a
Polish police unit was in charge of the area of Metrovica when the
incident occurred]. UNMIK had, additionally, on several occasions,
tried to overturn international warrants and criminal proceedings
against one of the key Kosovo radicals, known war criminal Agim Ceku,
who was now working as the Commander of the Kosovo Protection Corps
(KPC), which was, in fact, created out of the narco-terrorism
organization, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA/UCK).2
The October 15, 2003, GIS/Defense
& Foreign Affairs report also indicated that Ceku's KPC
was directly engaged in support of Albanian-trained Islamist
terrorists, noting:
"During the first half of August 2003, 300
Albanian-trained guerillas” including appr. 10
mujahedin (non-Balkan
Muslims)” were infiltrated across the Albanian border into Kosovo,
where many have subsequently been seen in the company (and homes)
of members of the so-called Kosovo Protection Corps which was
created out of Kosovo Albanian elements originally part of the KLA.
In fact, the Kosovo Protection Force seems almost synonymous with
the Albanian National Army (ANA), the new designation for the KLA.
The guerillas were trained in three camps inside the Albanian
border at the towns of Bajram Curi, Tropoja and Kuks, where the
camps have been in operation since 1997."
All of the warning signs are there for an escalation of substantial
proportions, both in Kosovo and in neighboring areas. On March 18,
2004, Defense & Foreign Affairs
Daily highlighted the confluence of Islamist terrorist
activities in 2004, in a report entitled
Terrorism, the Olympics and
Elections: the 2004 Confluence. What that report made
clear was the fact that the March 11, 2004, bombings in Madrid were
a precursor for the "season" of violence, and the success of the
actions there in shaping the political outcome of the Spanish
general election gave strong impetus to the actions planned for the
Olympics, the US and elsewhere.
The campaign to paint the Serbs as the aggressors included
references, picked up by international media, that Serbia &
Montenegrin forces and/or internal security forces from the Republic
of Serbia were deployed to move back into Kosovo. Serbian Premier
Vojislav Kostunica said on March 17, 2004, that "our military and
police units are not deployed along the administrative line with
Kosovo-Metohija. Speaking at a news conference after the Serbian
Government's special session held to discuss the clashes in Kosovo-Metohija,
Kostunica said that news about the army and police presence at the
administrative line dividing Kosovo province from the rest of Serbia
were misinformation spread on purpose in order to justify a further
radicalization of the situation.3
This was confirmed by intelligence sources on the ground in Kosovo;
there were no Serbian military or police deployments in the area.
Similarly, reports of the sacking of a mosque in Belgrade by Serbs
was also distorted, largely to cover the fact that a significant
number of Serbian Orthodox churches had been destroyed by the
Albanians in Kosovo: destructions which were witnessed, and not
prevented, by UNMIK forces on some occasions. There was, however, an
incident at the mosque in Belgrade, and a GIS source witnessed the
incident on March 17, 2004, and noted: "Hooligans” and that's what
they really were: drunk kids, 17 to 22 years old” pillaged the
interior of the mosque as well as the
madarasa [Islamic
school]." The source said that the teenagers lit a fire in front of
the mosque, but did not damage it.
UN
Police Director for Information in Kosovo, Derek Chappell, noted on
March 17, 2004: "In the past weeks there have been a number of
incidents that have escalated tension. We had a hand grenade attack
on the residence of President of Kosovo last Friday, we have had
four or five hand grenades thrown on the streets of Pristina, we had
a bomb left on the front of UN headquarters two weeks ago and a
Serbian youth was shot in a drive-by shooting this last Monday
evening [March 15, 2004]. These incidents have tended to create a
feeling of fear and uncertainty and last night we had three Albanian
youngsters who drowned in a river, allegedly as a result of being
chased into the river by Serbs, and this seems to have been the
catalyst that finally drove people into the streets and we saw this
violence that erupted today [March 17, 2004]."
However, as noted in repeated reports by GIS since mid-2004, the
escalation was planned, and ” because of pressures to move US and
other forces out of the area to aid Iraq deployments” NATO
intelligence and planning officials downplayed the threat.
The matter was not helped when, in recent weeks, former US Clinton
Administration State Dept. Assistant Secretary of State Richard
Holbrooke said that the break-up of the former Yugoslavia was not
yet complete: it required that Montenegro and Kosovo be broken off
to form separate sovereign states. A number of officials from the
region told GIS that they thought that this comment must have
reflected official positions in Washington. Almost certainly the
statement by Holbrooke gave encouragement and incitement to the new
wave of attacks in Kosovo.
Meanwhile, on the night of March 18, 2004, Serbia & Montenegro Pres.
Svetozar Marovic convened a special session of the Serbia &
Montenegro Supreme Defense Council, to discuss the latest escalation
of clashes. The Council issued a statement that which said that it
was following with great concern the escalation of organized
violence in Kosovo and Metohija, and was calling on, and expecting
from, UNMIK and KFOR, as well as from other international
institutions, to ensure the protection of the lives of Serbs and
Montenegrins and of their property in Kosovo and Metohija and to
fulfill other commitments undertaken under resolution 1244. The
Supreme Defence Council supported the contacts of relevant bodies of
Serbia and Montenegro, the Serbian Government and the Army of Serbia
and Montenegro with international institutions and expressed a
readiness of the Army of Serbia and Montenegro to lend assistance to
the international forces for stabilizing the situation in Kosovo and
Metohija in keeping with resolution 1244, within the mandate of KFOR
and UNMIK.
The Supreme Defense Council, along with the existing activities of
the Army of Serbia and Montenegro, ordered the Chief of Staff to
follow the situation and to suggest to the Supreme Defense Council
what measures should be taken next. Apart from the chairman and
members of the Council, Acting Pres. of Serbia Predrag Markovic and
Montenegrin Pres. Filip Vujanovic, also took part in the meeting,
along with Serbian Premier Vojislav Kostunica, Serbia & Montenegro
Defense Minister Boris Tadic, Deputy Defense Minister Vukasin Maras,
Chief of Staff Gen. Branko Krga and Supreme Defense Council
secretary Col. Ljunisa Jokic.
Fewer than 20,000 KFOR troops remain in Kosovo, and the few Serbs
who remain there still live in ghetto conditions; very few who fled
during the fighting in 1999 have returned to their former homes.
Serbs now represent only about 10 percent of Kosovo's two-million
population.
It
would, however, be unwise to focus solely on the Kosovo incidents
without seeing them in the light of regional developments and the
larger picture, including operations in and related to the ongoing
peacekeeping operations in Iraq. Significantly, as the Kosovo
operation itself got underway,
al-Qaida senior leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was reportedly
being besieged by Pakistan Army forces in southern Waziristan, in
the Pakistani tribal areas. Ayman al-Zawahiri, and his brother
Mohammed (currently in an Egyptian prison) organized and led much of
the terrorist, mujahedin
and narco-trafficking arrangements in both Bosnia and Kosovo. And
these arrangements remain central to
al-Qaida and Iranian
strategic operations to move from defensive operations against the
US-led Coalition forces to strongly offensive operations in the
run-up to the 2004 US elections.
Footnotes:
1.
The attempt to create a Muslim belt from the Adriatic Sea up into
the heart of Europe has been known for many decades by the Islamists
as the “green transversal”, the green standing for the Muslim
color (although, ironically, it is also the color of the Orthodox
Christians), and transversal meaning a line or path on the
ascendant. The Bosnian Muslims, even during the Tito era, managed to
inject the name onto sports stadium in Sarajevo, now the capital of
Bosnia & Herzegovina. The Zetra Stadium specifically stands for
ZElena (Green)
TRAnsverszala, in Serbo-Croat.
2.
See Defense & Foreign Affairs
Daily, October 23, 2003:
Slovenia Arrests Key Kosovo
Islamist, Based on Serbia-Montenegro Indictment. And
Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily,
March 5, 2004: UN Mission In
Kosovo Continues Protection for KLA Leader Ceku. See also
Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily,
February 11, 2004:
Report on Albanian Criminal-Terrorist Links Providing Key
Intelligence for Olympics Security, “War on Terror”.
3.. See Defense & Foreign
Affairs Daily, November 17, 2003:
New Balkans Islamist Weapons Supply Line Tied to 9/11 Players and
Contact of Holbrooke. And Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily
report of September 17, 2004:
Bosnian Official Links With Terrorism, Including 9/11, Become
Increasingly Apparent as Clinton, Clark Attempt to Justify Support
of Bosnian Militants. |
