• KLA Sympathetic

• Albanian Leader Murdered by KLA Reasons the KLA had a contract on his life.

• KLA as drug-running mafia     Kosovo Liberation Army [KLA]
  Ushtria Clirimtare E Kosoves [UCK]

  (Sources sited at end)

  During the war in former Yugoslavia, over 5,000 ethnic Albanians fought together with Croat and Muslim military formations. When the policy of non-violent resistance failed to make any progress, some ethnic Albanians turned to violence. Rugova's position began to be undermined when the Kosovo Question was left off the agenda at the Dayton Peace talks in November 1995. Younger Kosovars increasingly began to ask why they should hold fast to nonviolence when the Bosnian Serbs were rewarded for their violence and brutality with their own quasi-state within Bosnia. The Kosovo Liberation Army -- KLA in English acronym or UCK in the Albanian acronym -- first appeared in Macedonia in 1992. In 1995 the beginnings of armed resistance to the Serbs appeared, when the KLA carried out isolated attacks on Serbian police. The KLA appeared for the first time in public in June 1996, assuming reponsibility for a series of acts of sabotage committed against the police stations and policemen in Kosovo and Metohija. After these bombings, Serb authorities named it a terrorist organization. Since 1997 the Kosovo Liberation Army has conducted attacks on Serbian police and other officials. They did not attack Yugoslave Army military facilities, rather, their emphasis was ambushes of police patrols and attacks on Albanians who collaborated with Serbian authorities.

  The Kosovo Liberation Army is not a unified military organization subordinated to a political party or civil authority, but rather functions as a guerilla movement consisting of lightly armed fighters. However, its members carry visible insignia and execute the assignments of their command in a disciplined way. The KLA's strength has swelled from about 500 active members at the beginning of 1998 to a force of at least a few thousand men [though some estimates suggest that there are as many as 12,000 to 20,000 armed guerrillas]. The KLA is organized in small compartmentalized cells rather than a single large rebel movement. The KLA's strength is apparently divided between a maneuverable strike nucleus of a few hundred trained commandos, and the much larger number of locally organized members active throughout the region. The KLA typically performs actions in smaller groups, at times as few as three to five men.

  Many members of KLA units are professionally trained, and include former Yugoslav army soldiers. The group functions very professionally underground, due in part to fact that some of its leaders are former members of UDBA [Internal State Security Service], the army and the police.

  The Kosovo Liberation Army is alleged by Serbia to include about 1,000 foreign mercenaries from Albania, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Afghanistan, Bosnia and Herzegovina (Muslims) and Croatia. Among the mercenaries it is alleged that there also British and German instructors. Most of these mercenaries are said to be Albanian nationals, especially former Albanian army officers, policemen and members of the state security forces. According to Serbian accounts, the primary KLA training camps in Albania are Ljabinot near Tirana, Tropoja near the Yugoslav-Albanian border, Kuks and Bajram Curi near the Yugoslav-Albanian border. Serbia claims that these locations are also the headquarters for the command and units of the Albanian army and police for the northeastern part of Albania and the centers for recruiting followers of the overthrown Albanian president Sali Berisha.

  The KLA initially conducted hit-and-run attacks against the Serbian special forces police operating in the province. Typically, KLA units fire on Serbian patrols, trying to draw them into the woods where they will be ambushed. Initially, the buildings and personnel of the Serbian Special Police were not targeted, nor were high police officials and police vehicles. After the March 1998 Drenica massacre the KLO engaged in a wider scope of actions. In April and May 1998 there were a number of attacks on police units and facilities and attacks on the Military Police working with the Serbian police. In May and June 1998 larger-scale actions consisted actions to defend villages on important crossroads in order to form in the west of Kosovo [between Pec and Djakovica] a line of liberated territories and to disrupt communications between local police and Army units and the main forces in eastern Kosovo. The Yugoslav Army responded to these actions with heavy weaponry. Other KLA actions in this period included attacks on roads to isolate dispersed police stations and control points needing daily supplies.

  Until March 1998 the KLO used only light arms, but more recently KLA forces have been armed with assault rifles, along with Ambrust and Soviet-designed RPG shoulder-fired anti-tank rocket launchers, mortars, recoilless rifles, anti-aircraft machineguns, and mortars. The KLA equipment includes some weapons from the Second World War, such as PPS-41 automatic rifles and the MP-40, "Mosine-Nagant", though the inventory of modern arms, ammunition, telecommunication equipment, and other supplies is much larger. The KLA has obtained weapons used by the former Yugoslav People's Army, as well as other weapons produced in China and Singapore.

  The KLA is said to have two command centers -- one is abroad, and the other center is in Pristina, where the KLA has a well-developed logistics base. Direct contact with Kosovo and Metohija is maintained via Gnjilane, Vitina, Glogovac and Pristina. It is evident that the KLA has a well-organized surveillance apparatus, and that an organized word of mouth messenger service is operating to supplement established radio communications links.

  Both Rugova and the KLA have insisted upon independence for Kosovo. The KLA's professed long-term goal is to unite the Albanian populations of Kosovo, Macedonia and Albania into a greater Albania. Until recently, the Kosovars viewed granting Kosovo the status of a third republic within Yugoslavia as a transitional stage in achieving Kosovo's independence. This option was attractive to the international community as it did not result in changing the international border. But Serbia rejected this concept, taking the position that Kosovo remained Serbia's internal matter. And by mid-1998 the Kosovar view of this concept was equally negative, with an international protectorate and demilitarization seen as interim steps towards independence.

  Aside from causing casualties and deaths, the armed resistance provided Milosevic the pretext for his brutal crack-down. In late February 1998, following an unprecedented series of clashes in Kosovo between Serbian police forces and members of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), Serbian police raided villages in Kosovo's Drenica region, a KLA stronghold. The police reportedly burned homes and killed dozens of ethnic Albanians in these raids. Thousands of ethnic Albanians in Pristina protested Serb police actions, and were subsequently attacked by the police with tear gas, water cannons, and clubs. As a result of the fighting, thousands of Kosovar Albanians were displaced from their homes, many taking refuge with host families, while a smaller proportion (several thousand) took to the hills and forests.

  Over the summer of 1998 large-scale fighting broke out, resulting in the displacement of some 300,000 people. Since July 1998 Milosevic steadily increased the level of violence against the Albanian majority. Estimates put the number of deaths at several hundred. The local economy collapsed due to the Serbian embargo which began in early 1998. A ceasefire was agreed in October 1998 which enabled refugees to find shelter, averting an impending humanitarian crisis over the winter. A Verification Mission was deployed under the auspices of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). However, violence continued and the situation worsened significantly in January 1999. A peace conference, held in Paris, broke up on 19 March with the refusal of the Yugoslav delegation to accept a peaceful settlement. At 1900 hours GMT on 24 March, NATO forces began air operations over the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

  Milosevic's estimate that he could wipe out the KLA in five to seven days was wrong. As of early May 1999 the KLA had increased in size to as much as 8,000 or 10,000, an increase of several thousand combatants. The number of supporters has also risen to about 20,000. As Serbian military units are destroyed or driven into hiding by NATO air operations, there is a resurgence of UCK activity. The hundreds of thousands of internally displaced Kosovar Albanians are taking shelter in locations which often coincide with many of the UCK controlled areas, and it appears that some sanctuary is being provided for these people within these areas. The KLA is receiving recruits from the refugee population, in Albania primarily, and they are training aggressively. They have a broader base of support than they had before, and they continue to acquire or gather weapons, some of which they gather from Serb forces if they win the engagements. The KLA is attacking, blowing up vehicles, and inflicting fatalities on the VJ and the MUP with increasing regularity. Generally the KLA can't move freely, and they do not control extensive amounts of territory.

  Sources and Resources

  Home Page of the Republic of Kosova
  KOSOVO/A ON-LINE
  Kosova Liberation Peace Movement the Albanian Question

  Kosovo "freedom fighters" financed by organised crime By Michel Chossudovsky - 10 April 1999 -- The truth of the matter is that the KLA is sustained by organised crime with the tacit approval of the United States and its allies. The multibillion dollar Balkans narcotics trade has played a crucial role in "financing the conflict" in Kosovo in accordance with Western economic, strategic and military objectives.

  Chossudovsky's frame-up of the KLA By Michael Karadjis Green Left Weekly Issue #360 May 12, 1999 -- Michel Chossudovsky, a professor of economics at the University of Ottawa, has set out the most meticulous frame-up in a piece entitled "Freedom Fighters Financed by Organised Crime." Full of half-truths, assumptions and innuendoes about the KLA's alleged use of drug money, Chossudovsky's article seeks to discredit the KLA as a genuine liberation movement representing the aspirations of the oppressed Albanian majority.

  TERRORISM IN KOSOVO AND METOHIJA AND ALBANIA - WHITE BOOK -

  SOME ASPECTS OF CONTEMPORARY TERRORISM Milan Milosevic, Ljubomir Stajic, Police Academy Col. Milan V. Petkovic, Army of Yugoslavia,"Meaning" Jun 1998. FEDERAL MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS [BELGRADE -September 1998]
  Serbia: Former Security Operative Interviewed : FBIS-EEU-97-363 : 29 Dec 1997
  BETA Assesses Effects of UCK Operations : FBIS-EEU-98-134 : 14 May 1998
  BETA Examines Options for Kosovo : FBIS-EEU-98-176 : 25 Jun 1998
  Slovene Military Analyst on Kosovo--Part 3 : FBIS-EEU-98-265 : 22 Sep 1998

      Leading Kosovo Albanian found dead

  Saturday, May 8, 1999; Breaking News Sections: San Francisco Chronicle

  (05-08) 03:34 PDT BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (AP) -- Fehmi Agani, a prominent politician and member of the Kosovo Albanian delegation at February's failed peace talks in France, has been found dead, the state run Tanjug news agency said today. It quoted police as blaming Kosovo Albanian rebels for the killing.

  Tanjug said Agani's body was found by police in the village of Lipjan about 12 miles south of the Kosovo capital Pristina.

  The agency blamed the killing on the Kosovo Liberation Army, claiming it wanted to prevent negotiations between the government and moderate Kosovo Albanians. Agani was a close aide of Ibrahim Rugova, Kosovo's prominent ethnic Albanian leader who was allowed to leave the country for Rome on Wednesday.

  The European Union's chief Kosovo envoy, Wolfgang Petritsch, expressed his doubts about the official Yugoslav version.

  Petritsch, back from talks with Rugova in Rome on Friday, told The Associated Press in Vienna, Austria that, ``Rugova told me ... Agani had tried several times to reach Macedonia in recent weeks but he was turned back at the border each time.''

  Instead, Tanjug claimed that ``Agani was held in isolation by the so-called KLA in order to be prevented from participating in talks between Ibrahim Rugova and the Serb government.'' It alleged, ``Since Rugova went to Rome, the terrorists obviously lost interest in keeping him alive and they executed him.''

  On Friday, Petritsch said in an interview with Austrian state television that Agani had been arrested by the Serbs.

  ``I am absolutely distressed'' by news that the Kosovo Albanian official was killed, Petritsch said. ``Agani was the actual head of the moderate negotiating team (at the talks Rambouillet), an unbelievably conciliatory man equipped with understanding for the Serbian side, who stood up against any kind of radicalism.''

  To illustrate his point, Petritsch recalled that because Agani spoke only limited English the two would communicate in Serbian. Many Kosovo Albanians either do not speak Serbian or refuse to do so.

  Petritsch called for an international investigation into Agani's death.

  ``Since the United Nations now can dispatch a mission to Kosovo, it would be a priority task to clarify the circumstances leading to Agani's death,'' he said.

  Soon after launching its air attacks on March 24, NATO said it had received reports that Agani had been killed after attending the funeral of a prominent ethnic Albanian lawyer whose body and those of two of his sons were found a day after his family said Serb police had taken them away.

  Later, however, NATO retracted its claim and said Agani was alive.

  Agani, who was in his 70s, was one of the founders of Rugova's League of Democratic Kosovo and held a doctorate in sociology.

Vladimir Alexe (Romania Libera), 30 Jul 98

The weapon traffic routes

According to the experts, the region of Kosovo has in the last years become the real stepping stone of the weapon traffic, not only for the Balkans, but also for the entire Europe. Prishtina, Podujevo, Pec and other places are the centre of the international routes' cross-roads used by the traders. The experienced weapon traffickers consider the Albanians from Kosovo and Metohija as the people with whom big deals can be closed. The first "channel" used by the Albanian weapon traffickers was, as understood, the Yugoslav route, the surplus of weapon from the former Yugoslav republics to be more precise. But the Albanians from Kosovo had soon formed several other secret channels for the weapon traffic, in the direction of Germany, Belgium, Switzerland and Denmark. The Slovenian border crossing "Sentilj" was proclaimed by the weapon traffickers as the "ideal border crossing". Albania provides a special channel for smuggling the weapon into Kosovo, but the traffickers consider it "risky" because of the numerous Serbian Army units stationed at the border between the two countries and the (counter) attack of the snipers or Serbian guns, well camouflaged within the zone. The latest addition to the weapon market is China, practising the "dumping" policy in this field and, for example, offers rifles for just 200 DM at the black market. Turk's Mafia and Albanian's heroin In principle, the weapon black market in Kosovo is in stable "mobility". So, the traditional "kalashnykov" can be bought at the prices of 700 to 1700 DM (the only acceptable currency). "Papovka" costs 600-800 DM and the revolvers could be bought at 400 to 700 DM. Grenades and mines are 30 DM a piece, almost a symbolic price. In the recent years the European Union recorded the fact that the Turk's Mafia is bringing in weapon galore to Kosovo and Sandzak, through Bulgaria and Skopje (Macedonia).

The interesting matter is that the Albanian terrorists grouped into the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army, pay for the weapon not only in German marks but in heroin, as well. In 1994, the European Union seated in Brussels, published a report based upon a study of drug traffic routes in Europe, identifying the well-organised Albanian traffickers from Macedonia and from Kosovo, who paid for the smuggling of weapon in heroin. The weapons provided in this matter were handed over to the Albanian terrorist groups, fighting for the separation of Kosovo from the FR of Yugoslavia. The European Union report stated:" The recent larger quantities of heroin were recorded in Switzerland, Germany, Italy and Greece, and the investigation proved that these quantities come from the centers like Prishtina (Kosovo), Skopje (Macedonia) and Shkoder (Albania). The Yugoslav army storage of weapons did not go unnoticed by the Albanian traffickers from Kosovo. The Albanians- Moslems broke into the weapon storages in Raska and Novi Pazar, and took out (as in September 1997) automatic guns large quantities of explosives, tens of mortars and thousands of ammunition. Just one of these "breakings in" the quantity of weapon taken was worth about 1000 DM in the black market.

"Those in possession of the Balkans, especially Kosovo and Metohija, control the stability of the entire Europe"

The Albanian terrorism and separatism obscures the geopolitical and the strategic dimension known only by some. In the offices of the Great, the Balkans is considered to have the deciding role of the stability or instability of Europe. Within this context, Kosovo and Macedonia seem to be in possession of keys of stability in the Balkans. The date of origin of the Albanian separatist terrorism is not, as believed, recent. In 1991 in Kosovo and Metohija around 200 Albanian terrorist attacks were registered, against the police officers but against the civilians as well. Since the very beginning, among the terrorists' civilians-victims were the Albanians, too, their only guilt being their respect of law and not supporting the terrorist actions. But all the terrorist actions are not committed by the Albanians from the "Kosovo Liberation Army" and "The National Movement for Kosovo". Both terrorist organisations are positioned in Switzerland and both are considered by the experts as the main sponsors of the terrorist operations in Kosovo and Metohija. The main goal of the Albanian terrorist is not only the separation of the Kosovo Province from the FR of Yugoslavia, but the "ethnic cleansing" particularly. Ibrahim Rugova himself, seen as a moderate and opponent of the secessionist ideas, says to Spiegel: "Kosovo will belong to those ones who will stay there", and thus discreetly creating, beside terrorism and separatism, a deceitful geopolitical and geostrategical design. It gives the control Kosovo a different dimension: the Province is the "key" of stability in the Balkans, and the Balkans are the "Key" to the stability of the entire Europe (and not only the south east Europe, as perceived).

Those ones in possession of Kosovo and Metohija, control the stability or the instability of Europe. The involvement of all the great powers in the zone (including China) not seems quite justified. To own the "key" to peace or war in the Old Continent is not a small matter. "Phantom Government" of the so-called Kosovo Republic -still unrecognised by any state - has its seat in Ulm near Bonn, in Germany. The leader of this phantom "republic" - Buyar Bukoshi - receives significant "donations", later to be deposited in the Swiss banks or secret safes. Bukoshi himself, with his family, lives in Ulm. Meaning, far away from the bloodshed in Kosovo. Contrary to the leader, Ibrahim Rugova, who has not left the region and is looking forward to the US State Department support. In 1997, the Carnegie Foundation" invited Rugova to USA and introduced him to the public through mass media in the right way. If Bukoshi is "the Germany man", Rugova is "the American man". In practice, in the background of the bloody scene of Kosovo protagonists, the interests of one or the other great power can be discerned. The region of Kosovo being the geostrategic area of extreme importance to Europe, the "former Kosovo" could be later mentioned in other cases as well in connection with the ethnic separatism in Europe. Renowned cases.

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