Kosovo: A Balkan Base for Al Quada?

Adam's Apple

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Apr 25, 2004
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A Balkan Base for Al Qaeda?
By Julia Gorin, Front Page Magazine
March 20, 2006

The War on Terror suffered a major blow three years before it was ever announced. It happened when the people of this democracy were misled into attacking the sovereign, emerging post-Communist democracy of Yugoslavia--over rumors of genocide and ethnic cleansing that proved false. In so doing, we put the final touch on delivering the Balkans to al Qaeda.

Today we are being asked to seal that historical blunder, whose repercussions seven years later are only escalating as those we “rescued” turn their weapons against UN and NATO forces. While NATO spends most of its time rooting out terror cells in Kosovo and Bosnia—which served as the logistics bases for the London and Madrid bombings--the 2006 deadline to complete our eagerly forgotten debacle and determine the province’s final status is fast approaching. To persuade the international community that only one final status will be acceptable, our Albanian "rescuees" have been stepping up the violence, a message to the West that it has only one possible exit strategy: grant unconditional independence--without border compromises with Serbia and without protection guarantees for what’s left of the non-Albanian minorities.

If we allow this to happen, the peacekeepers will have to leave, and with them our eyes and ears in this terror haven and thruway. Still, congressional, State Department and UN sentiment seems to be tilting toward self-determination and the logic that if you’ve dug yourself into a hole, keep digging.

Here is the size of that hole so far: In November, 2001, what should have been an explosive article appeared in the European edition of the Wall St. Journal. Headlined “Al Qaeda’s Balkan Links,” it read: “For the past 10 years…Ayman al-Zawahiri [bin Laden’s second in command] has operated terrorist training camps [and] weapons of mass destruction factories throughout Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Turkey and Bosnia…Though the Clinton administration had been briefed extensively by the State Department in 1993 on the growing Islamist threat in former Yugoslavia, little was done to follow through….”

Nor did a December 2003 article in Britain’s Sunday Mirror register a blip: “Posing as members of the Real IRA, we…made our deal in Kosovo, a breeding ground for fanatics with al-Qaeda links. Our contact was the deputy commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army Niam Behljulji, known as Hulji…Hulji is said to supply terrorists across Europe and has been accused of massacring Serbian women and children during the war. He even posed grinning for a photograph, holding the severed head of one of his victims…Hulji said: ‘The plastics (Semtex) is the old type. No metal strips inside. It cannot be detected at airports.’”

Hulji, according to the December issue of the Defense & Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy journal, is the man who supplied the Semtex-like explosives used in the London and Madrid attacks.

for full article:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=21712
 
World Court to try crimes allegedly committed by ethnic Albanian guerrillas...

Special Kosovo War Crimes Court To Open In The Hague
Friday 15th January, 2016 - The Dutch government says a special EU-backed court is being established in The Hague to try crimes allegedly committed by ethnic Albanian guerrillas during the Kosovo war.
"The court will try serious crimes allegedly committed in 1999-2000 by members of the Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK) against ethnic minorities and political opponents," the Dutch Foreign Ministry said in a January 15 statement.

The EU says Kosovo must confront allegations of war crimes committed by the UCK against ethnic Serbs during and immediately following the conflict if the country is to integrate further with the 28-member bloc. The new court, set to open later this year, will maintain a roster of international judges but will be part of Kosovo's judicial system.

Kosovo declared independence almost a decade after NATO went to war in 1999 to halt the killing and expulsion of ethnic Albanian civilians by Serbian forces trying to crush an insurgency. Belgrade rejects its independence declaration. Some 10,000 people are estimated to have died during the conflict, most of them ethnic Albanians.

Special Kosovo War Crimes Court To Open In The Hague
 

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