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Serbia, Kosovo edge closer to another war; skirmishes, troop buildup on borders

Anonymous Mon 02 Oct 2023 00:18:15 No.1221568 View View Reply Original Report

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https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/30/world/europe/kosovo-serbia-troops-nato.html
https://www.b92.net/eng/news/politics.php?yyyy=2023&mm=10&dd=01&nav_id=116734
https://www.rferl.org/a/kosovo-serbia-troops-border/32617825.html
https://news.yahoo.com/kosovo-edge-deadly-clashes-stir-124014726.html

Nearly a week after deadly clashes in Kosovo triggered one of the gravest escalations in the former breakaway province in years, the opportunity for reconciliation between ethnic Albanians and Serbs seemed as distant as ever.

The killing of a Kosovo police officer and an ensuing gun battle at a monastery brought years of distrust and bitterness to the surface -- as a war of words between Serbia and Pristina's governments, competing days of mourning, and calls for sanctions marred already fractious relations.

The United States on Friday warned of "a large Serbian military deployment along the border with Kosovo" and called on "Serbia to withdraw those forces from the border".

On Saturday, in the southern Serbian town of Raska near the border with Kosovo, no particular movement or increased presence of Serbian armed forces were visible, according to an AFP journalist.

Last Sunday, three Serb gunmen were killed in an hours-long shootout with Kosovo police, after they ambushed a patrol and later barricaded themselves at an Orthodox monastery near the northern border with Serbia.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 02 Oct 2023 00:18:44 No.1221569 Report

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In the wake of the clashes, Kosovo police have rounded up suspects, remanded three alleged gunmen in custody, and seized an arsenal of weapons that authorities said could have armed hundreds.

On Friday morning, Kosovo police fanned out again across the north as they conducted an operation that saw the special units raid properties linked to the suspected mastermind of the attack on the police.

The move triggered immediate condemnation from Belgrade, with Serbia's Office for Kosovo calling the operation a "brutal and excessive demonstration of force" with special police units "armed to the teeth".

NATO meanwhile said it was ready to increase its peacekeeping force in Kosovo.

In the ethnically divided city of Mitrovica in the north, Serb residents said they feared an increased presence of Kosovo police and ensuing crackdowns in the already restive community.

"I'm afraid of repression, which we've had before. A policeman was killed and that's terrible... now I can only imagine what will happen next," said a 38-year-old Serb resident, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

"I just want a normal life and that's not a normal life. I think that after this the whole community will be characterised as if everyone has something to do with that event."

Further south in the capital Pristina, the mostly ethnic Albanian residents by and large pinned the blame for the weekend's violence on the Serbian government, saying peace would only be possible after amends were made.

"Serbia is to blame for what happened," Mevluda Hoxha, a 64-year-old living in Pristina, told AFP.

"Reconciliation with the Serbs in the north is possible -- why not live together, but they won't."

Sunday's clashes came more than a week after the latest round of talks European Union-sponsored negotiations between Kosovo and Serbia leaders ended in failure.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 02 Oct 2023 00:19:45 No.1221571 Report

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The talks looked all but dead in the water in the wake of attacks, even as a new round of shuttle diplomacy appeared to kick off to de-escalate soaring tensions.

"The more such incidents occur, the less likely it is that Serbia and Kosovo will be willing or able to compromise. The EU will not be able to fix the problem —- perhaps only manage it and keep a lid on it," wrote analyst Dimitar Bechev in a column for Carnegie Europe.

Unease in Kosovo's troubled north has been percolating for months, following Prime Minister Albin Kurti's decision in May to install ethnic Albanian mayors in four Serb-majority municipalities there -- despite an election boycott by the area's Serbs.

Protests followed, as well as the arrest by Serbia of three Kosovar police officers, and a riot by Serb demonstrators that saw dozens of NATO peacekeepers injured.

The clash in the north is just the latest in a long list of incidents to rattle the area since Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008.

Serbia -- and key allies China and Russia -- have refused to recognise the move.

Hostility between Kosovo and Serbia has persisted since an all-out war between Serbian forces and ethnic Albanian insurgents in the late 1990s drew NATO intervention against Belgrade.

Despite years of negotiations between the two sides, little progress has been achieved.

"Reconciliation will be possible if there are no more repeated provocations," said Agim Maloku, a 60-year-old economist in Pristina.

However, Maloku stressed that partitioning the territory's north to make peace with its Serb population was not an option.

"The north is part of Kosovo and will remain part of Kosovo."

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 02 Oct 2023 01:14:38 No.1221581 Report

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXEzn5IOPLI
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/9/30/vucic-wants-war-kosovo-pm-accuses-belgrade-of-inciting-violence

Kosovo’s Prime Minister Albin Kurti says Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic planned and ordered an attack in northern Kosovo “to destabilise” the country with the goal of starting a war.

About 30 heavily armed Serbs stormed the village of Banjska last Sunday, fought Kosovo police in a gun battle, and barricaded themselves into a Serbian Orthodox monastery. A Kosovo policeman and three Serb attackers were killed.

Hours later, police retook the monastery where they found a large cache of weapons and ammunition. Six wounded members of the armed group were hospitalised in southern Serbia, according to Interior Minister Xhelal Svecla, while other attackers fled.

Kurti told Al Jazeera that Serb “paramilitary formations” in Banjska had equipment manufactured in Serbia that cannot be found on the open market.

While information is still being gathered by prosecutors and Kosovo police, “what we know is that we’ve confiscated five million euros [$5.3m] worth of ammunition and weapons and it was all manufactured in factories in Serbia,” Kurti alleged.

“Hand grenades, machine guns, everything that we confiscated was produced in Serbia and cannot be found on the market. It’s obvious the army of Serbia gave this to the paramilitary formations.”

Kurti said the ultimate goal of Sunday’s attack was for Serbia to stage a scenario and raise tensions.

“They wanted our police to enter the Banjska monastery so they could then share photos worldwide [showing] bullets on the monastery’s walls. That didn’t happen because our police are very strong and very professional and [the attackers] escaped.”

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 02 Oct 2023 01:15:39 No.1221582 Report

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“They only wanted the start of a war to be on Sunday, September 24. [It’s well known] how the war started in Sarajevo. On March 1, 1992, during a wedding, an Orthodox Serb priest was injured. We were very careful that something similar doesn’t happen. But I think they wanted to repeat the scenarios from the beginning of the war [in former republics of Yugoslavia].”

Kurti said Milan Radoicic, a top Kosovo Serb politician who admitted on Friday that he planned the attack, “received logistical, military equipment and preparation from Belgrade, and also received political orders from President Vucic”, noting their close ties.

Radoicic – vice president of the “Serb List”, a Belgrade-supported Serb political party in Kosovo – resigned from his position on Friday and called the attack a “defence” operation against Kosovo authorities. But he has denied any involvement or support by the Serbian government.
‘Serbian security institutions’

Dan Ilazi, head of research at the Kosovar Centre for Security Studies, told Al Jazeera that German and US officials also acknowledged the equipment involved would be difficult to acquire without high-level connections.

“For instance, one of the grenade launchers they used can only be purchased by the permission of the government in Serbia. Plus, some of the individuals involved in this attack, according to Kosovo police, are part of the security establishment in Serbia,” Ilazi said, adding that Radoicic’s “connections to the Serbian government are very transparent”.

“The extent to which the Serbian president himself knew about this attack is debatable … The responsibility over this attack, the evidence presented so far, clearly seems to show participation of Serbian security institutions.

“My personal suspicion is that this perhaps is also instigated, or supported or encouraged by Russia, who maintains a strong presence in Serbian security institutions,” Ilazi said.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 02 Oct 2023 01:16:40 No.1221583 Report

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Vucic and his office did not respond to Al Jazeera about the allegations, but he has denied any government involvement in Sunday’s attack.

On Thursday, he told the Reuters news agency that Serbia will investigate the origin of the seized weapons including a cache of assault rifles, anti-tank rocket launchers, hand grenades, land mines and drones.

“Why this would be beneficial for Belgrade? What would be the idea? To destroy our position we have been building for a year? To destroy this in a day? … Serbia does not want war,” Vucic said.

He said suspects will be investigated and Radoicic would be “summoned by the prosecutor”.

In turn, Vucic accused Kurti of wanting to expel Serbs from Kosovo.

Kurti’s refusal to form an Association of Serb Municipalities, as part of the 2013 agreement between Belgrade and Pristina that would allocate Kosovo Serbs more autonomy, is what fueled tensions leading to violence in Banjska, he said.

Vucic told Serbian TV he has year-old information that Serbs in Kosovo have been preparing for resistance, noting the barricades Serb residents set up more than a year ago.

“The situation is boiling … Kurti did this, he united Serbs,” said Vucic.

Some 50,000 Serbs who live in north Kosovo do not recognise Pristina institutions and view Belgrade as their capital. Clashes have repeatedly occurred with Kosovo police and NATO-led peacekeepers known as KFOR. But Sunday’s violence was the worst in years.

‘They came to attack’

Kurti questioned what a heavily armed Serb paramilitary group was doing in a 14th-century monastery in Banjska.

“Who are they defending there? They came to attack… [Vucic] loves war, he wishes for war and he wants war because he wants a Republika Srpska in Kosovo,” Kurti told Al Jazeera, referring to the Serb-led entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina, formed during the Dayton peace agreement in 1995, which formally ended the war but is the source of much turmoil today.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 02 Oct 2023 01:17:42 No.1221584 Report

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“[Republika Srpska was formed] because there was a war and a genocide in Bosnia. And now he wants a war and one more genocide in Kosovo so he can get a Republika Srpska [in Kosovo], but he won’t,” Kurti added.

Meanwhile on Friday, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters the United States is calling on Serbia to withdraw its forces from the border, after it detected an “unprecedented” Serbian military build-up – “a very destabilising development”.

In a statement on Friday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he spoke with Vucic to de-escalate tensions. He “welcomed KFOR’s increased presence and the North Atlantic Council’s decision to authorise additional forces”.

To avoid such attacks from happening again, Kurti told Al Jazeera two things are urgently needed – security for Kosovo and sanctions for Serbia.

“All the time they are running some military drills by our border … I think this is very dangerous. They will think you are either afraid or weak. That’s why the international community – the European community, NATO, the US and the UK – must show and prove to Belgrade that a return to the 1990s will not be allowed.”

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 02 Oct 2023 15:09:31 No.1221736 Report

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bumping for actual news
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/serbia-lowers-number-troops-near-kosovo-army-chief-staff-says-2023-10-02/
>Serbia has withdrawn some troops stationed near the border with Kosovo, after having increased the numbers deployed there following a gun battle in northern Kosovo in which four people died, army commander General Milan Mojsilovic said on Monday.

>Tensions between Belgrade and Pristina soared since Sept. 24, when Kosovo police near the northern Kosovo's village of Banjska fought around 30 armed Serbs who barricaded themselves in a Serbian Orthodox monastery. Three attackers and one police officer were killed.

>The skirmishes prompted new international concern over the stability in the predominantly Albanian Kosovo, which declared independence from Serbia in 2008 after a guerrilla uprising and a 1999 NATO bombing campaign that drove out Serb security forces.

>"Serbia had deployed 8,350 troops near (the border) ... with Kosovo, ... and reduced them to 4,500 at the moment," Mojsilovic said.

>He said the army presence in the so-called Ground Safety Zone, a 5 kilometre-wide (3-mile) strip inside Serbia along the Kosovo border, had "reverted to normal."

>Serbia has not "formally raised the level of readiness" of its 22,500-strong army, Mojsilovic said.

>Kosovo on Saturday called on Serbia to reduce the number of troops along the border, while the United States on Friday said it was monitoring Serbian military deployment, describing it as destabilising.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 02 Oct 2023 15:10:40 No.1221739 Report

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>Pristina blamed Serbia for providing financial and logistical support to the group that fought Kosovo police, which Belgrade denied.

>Mojsilovic said that Milan Radoicic, a Kosovo Serb politician who had admitted to taking the part in the skirmishes in Banjska, had not taken part in training with the army.

>Some 50,000 Serbs who live in northern Kosovo do not recognise Pristina's institutions and see Belgrade as their capital. They have often clashed with Kosovo police and international peacekeepers, but Sunday's violence was the worst in years.

>NATO, which still has 4,500 troops in Kosovo, said on Friday it had "authorised additional forces to address the current situation".

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