Bin Laden was very much involved with Somalia (e.g. "Blackhawk Down") in 1993.
In 1994 Bin Laden was in Bosnia. In 1999 he was probably in Kosovo. Certainly many, many Iranian mujaheeden were there by then.
Posted on 02/04/2006 12:59:01 PM PST by joan
The trial of Slobodan Milosevic resumed on Friday with the testimony of Ms. Eva Prentice. Ms. Prentice is a British journalist who has covered the Balkans for both The Guardian and the London Times newspapers since the 1980s. Over the course of her career she visited the former Yugoslavia at least forty times.
Ms. Prentice testified that she was concerned by non-objective reporting in the Western media. She said that Western politicians and journalists presented the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia in terms of good vs. evil. She said that Serbs were demonized and portrayed as evil while Kosovo-Albanians, Croats, and Bosnian-Muslims were portrayed as innocent victims.
Ms. Prentice made it clear that she believed that all sides had committed crimes and that all sides had innocent victims. As her book “One Woman’s War” makes clear she is not an apologist for the Serbian cause.
Ms. Prentice testified that the KLA waged a terrorism war in Kosovo throughout the late 1990s. She said that Kosovo fell victim to a cycle of violence where the KLA launched attacks and the Yugoslav security forces retaliated.
Ms. Prentice was one of the few Western journalists who was actually in Kosovo during the NATO bombing campaign. She testified that she spoke to hundreds of Albanian, Roma and Turkish civilians.
She testified that the Kosovo-Albanians told her that they were leaving Kosovo primarily because they were afraid of the KLA and the NATO bombing. She only came across one Albanian who told her that he was leaving because the Serbian police had told him to.
She said that the KLA was telling the Albanian population that it was their “patriotic duty” to leave Kosovo in order to make it appear that the Serbs were victimizing the Albanians and ethnically cleansing the province.
Ms. Prentice testified that she took measures to speak to Albanian civilians at times when Serbian police were not around. Her Albanian interpreter was a lawyer who worked for Ibrahim Rugova.
She testified that Albanian civilians were afraid to speak freely in the presence of the KLA. She recounted one instance in Kosvoska Mitrovica where she was interviewing a group of Albanians and they would not speak to her once a member of the KLA came within earshot.
During her stay in Kosovo she never witnessed any inappropriate behavior on the part of the Yugoslav Army or the Serbian police. She said that she saw non-Serb civilians enjoying a relaxed relationship with the army.
She testified that she had heard from other journalists that some people had been forced to leave Kosovo due to pressure exerted against them by Serbian forces, but she never witnessed any such incidents herself.
Ms. Prentice testified that the civilian population was justifiably afraid of the NATO bombing. She witnessed the destruction of civilian targets almost daily. She saw the result of NATO’s cluster bomb attack on Nis. She saw at least 30 corpses in the streets and interviewed several wounded persons in the hospital.
She also witnessed the destruction caused by NATO bombing raids in Gnjilane, Istok (Dubrava Prison), Orohovac, and Meja. In each of these cases the indictment accuses Serbia for the destruction.
In the case of Meja, the indictment accuses Serbian forces of organizing a massacre, Ms. Prentice spoke to several victims in the hospital and they told her that NATO had bombed them.
While she was in Gnjilane she did not see any evidence of the deliberate burning of shops and houses alleged by the indictment. All she saw was the destruction caused by NATO.
The indictment says that Serbian troops forced the Albanian population to leave Prizren from March 28th onwards. But Ms. Prentice said that there were a lot of Albanians in Prizren while she was there in May.
Ms. Prentice was bombed by NATO herself. At about 3 PM on May 30, 1999 she was on her way to Prizren. She was on the road about 8 km east of Prizren when NATO attacked. Her driver was killed in the attack, and a cameraman she was traveling with was blown into a river several meters away.
She said that the NATO aircraft were flying low enough that they could have easily seen the civilian cars on the road below.
Ms. Prentice, who has a pilot’s license herself, estimated the aircraft to be flying at about 2,000 ft. Because she was traveling with a cameraman she also has videotape of the NATO aircraft. She was ultimately rescued from the scene Yugoslav Army personnel who took her to safety and gave her medical treatment.
About two weeks after the bombing Ms. Prentice began to suffer health effects. She lost her voice. Her immune system weakened. She has had cancer twice since then, and the presence of heavy metals in her blood stream causes her to suspect that NATO used depleted uranium weapons during the attack.
NATO has publicly denied that it carried out the bombing raid, but Ms. Prentice’s father (who is a member of the British House of Lords) received information from his contacts in the British military that NATO had indeed carried out the bombing.
Ms. Prentice testified that after NATO entered Kosovo a massive exodus of the non-Albanian population occurred. She said that the KLA, together with Albanians from Albania, went around Kosovo forcing the non-Albanian population to leave. She said that NATO did nothing to protect the non-Albanian population.
The most explosive part of her testimony dealt with an interview that she scheduled with Alija Izetbegovic in November 1994. While she was waiting in Izetbegovic's foyer both she, and a journalist from Der Speigel, saw Osama bin Laden being escorted into Izetbegovic’s office. Yes *that* Osama bin Laden -- the same Osama bin Laden who masterminded the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Needless to say this evidence did not sit well with the tribunal. Mr. Nice immediately objected and Judge Robinson cut off the testimony immediately declaring it “irrelevant.”
Milosevic tried to explain that the involvement of Islamic terrorists with the highest level of the Bosnian Muslim government shows that the Bosnian Serbs were fighting a war for self-preservation, not a war for some made-up “greater Serbia” conspiracy. Unfortunately the Judges wouldn’t have any of it so he was forced to move on.
Milosevic questioned the witness questions about the Markale market. Over the course of her work, Ms. Prentice spoke with people who had access to ballistics data on the blast. According to the information she received the blast did not come from an outside projectile. The blast came from an explosive device that had been taped under one of the tables at the market.
When she interviewed Lord Owen she asked him whether he had believed that the Bosnian-Muslim government planted the bomb themselves. She said that Owen responded by refusing to confirm or deny the suggestion. The Markale Market is significant because NATO used it as the justification to bomb the Bosnian Serbs.
Ms. Prentice testified that when she visited Sarajevo in 1994 she did not find the city under siege. She said that there was some shelling but not a siege.
She said that one day while she was at the offices of the Bosnian presidency a shell exploded near the house she was staying. She observed that the shell fell in a location that was surrounded by tall buildings and narrow streets meaning that the shell could have only come in from a steep angle, which meant that it could only have been fired from a Muslim-held position.
During her time in Bosnia she visited Pale. She said that she was surprised to find that a large number of non-Serb refugees were being given shelter there. Before she actually visited Bosnia she had believed what the rest of the media told her about the Serbs.
She recounted one occasion where she tried to convince Robin Cook to visit Pale so that he could see for himself that non-Serbs were living freely in the Bosnian-Serb capital. Cook, who was on a fact finding mission, told her that he would not visit Pale because he thought the Serbs were “monsters.”
Mr. Nice spent the last part of the day cross-examining Ms. Prentice. As I said in the beginning of this report Ms. Prentice is not an apologist for the Serbian cause. She wrote a lot of things that were critical of the Serbian side and Mr. Nice spent his entire cross-examination quoting every unfavorable word that she ever wrote about the Serbs. Ms. Prentice could barely get a word in edgewise.
However, it is worth noting that nearly everything Mr. Nice quoted from Ms. Prentice’s work was hearsay. It was mostly information that she had heard from others – not events that she had directly witnessed herself.
At the end of the day Milosevic was left with practically no time for re-examination. He accused the prosecutor of quoting Ms. Prentice’s work in a selective and misleading fashion.
The trial will resume next Monday with the continued testimony of Prof. Branko Kostic.
At this point in time it hardly matters whether or not Osama was a known terrorist THEN, he certainly made his mark afterward and I doubt his intentions changed much between 1994 and 2001.
Bin Laden was very much involved with Somalia (e.g. "Blackhawk Down") in 1993.
In 1994 Bin Laden was in Bosnia. In 1999 he was probably in Kosovo. Certainly many, many Iranian mujaheeden were there by then.
And if you've been here before, what the hell were you thinking when you waded back in?
= )
All I need to know about ANY muslim, I learned on 9/11.
Too bad so many on this forum still support weasel muslims.
Proof please,
as I remember the events (as reported) there was little or no Serb air presence during the NATO invasion - and bomb runs of any sort would have been real low on their priority list while a half dozen foreign air forces prowled their air space.
Man, you are going against yourself.
1. You say that NATO won and that NATO airforce was superior
than You denie that by saying "NATO planes didn`t killed civillians, but Serb aircrafts did".
What Serb aircrafts? Worlds largest millitary alliance is at war with 1,000 planes up in the air, and you claim that Serb jets flew and attacked targets?
2. you say that NATO was success, and talking about "Delivering of bombs", but denying tha fact that Serb forces withdrew from Kosovo, after 78 days of NATO "Success" in order with entire techniqe, only after ordered to withdraw. Did NATO found any destroyed tanks? Howmany, 20? 30? Best war capture was M-4 Sherman, near Slatina airport, i belive.
3. After 78 days of war, NATO spokesman Jamie Shea said that "Sqadron of Yugoslav MiGs left Pristina airport.
That was success? It is like fighting Lihtenstein ofr 78 days, claiming victory.
I thank God that US troops in Iraq are not blab-mouth like you, but real-fighting man like they supost to be!
"Delivering payload"
No such thing in real war.
In fact, rumor has it that clark's son even comes in in support of bosnains and ALL muslims.
You do realise that your ar giving approximate mininum deployment heights? Cluster munitions are fuzed to allow the payload to be released at predetermined heights. For example the MiG-29 taken out at Nis in May 1999 was taken out from 10,000ft by an aicraft deploying a cluster munition. The cluster munition disperses at a pre-determined height near to the target not at 10,000ft.
Strafing runs with A-10 can be up at 4,000ft and still 80% of the shells will come within 20ft of their target.
The A-10 that left its starboard engine nacelle in Kosovo on 2nd May 1999 was hit by a SAM and not AAA.
Hoppy, my man, where are up until now?
I got worried that someone is accusing Muslims, and you ar not here to defend them.
http://www.balkanpeace.org/lan/ICTY3B.HTM
An Associated Press report of 7 May gave the following account:
"An Associated Press reporter, taken to the scene by Serbian authorities, saw destruction to an entire street near Nis University. One house was completely burned. Dozens of others had their windows blown out and their walls were pierced by what appeared to be fragments of cluster bombs. Several cars were destroyed.
A bit farther, in the Anete Andrejevic street near a market place, three bodies were lying in pools of blood. One was that of an old woman surrounded by pieces of carrots. The other two were men, one dismembered. Unexploded yellow bomblets were scattered over the pavement."
('Milosevic Opens Door to Peace Deal' by George Jahn, The Associated Press, 7 May).
That was that "pinpoint cluster attack"
game, Set, Mach.
That war isn't over, yet.
If that's your level of understanding, then you're hardly worth responding to, are you?
But enough of me - you were talking to USNBandit. Please don't let me distract you.
http://www.serbia-info.com/news/1999-07/23/13478.html
Cluster bombing of airport cused massive destruction of civillian targets.
Prooving that above 4,000 ft., yoy miss Iowa.
I hope we will win it.
Both of us, for good of mankind.
:)
Low flying targets, Both helos and recon aircraft and light strike aircraft were detected. The rules of engagement did not allow for fighters to come off CAP and go down in the weeds looking for these targets to positively ID them.
Even General Michael C. Short, admits that they lowered it down to 5,000 ft. But I suspect, they did fly even lower, but that is all he will admit to:
It came back from the squadron that we needed to let the forward air controllers go down to 5,000 feet, and to let the strikers go down as low as 8,000 feet in a diving delivery, to ensure that they verify their target and then right back up again to 15,000 feet. We acknowledged that that increases the risks significantly, but none of us want to hit a tractor full of refugees again. We can't stand that.
So from that point on, the rules were: "Try to operate at 15,000 feet, but if you're a forward air controller, like my son is, in the daytime with your binoculars and you see something on the ground and you can't identify it from 15,000 feet, then you're clear down as low as 5,000 feet to make that identification." . . .
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/kosovo/interviews/short.html
(Joan`s post)
Joan, what are you babbling about? The Chinese embassy was hit by JDAMs (Joint Direct Attack Munitions) from a B-2A Spirit. You won't have seen any footage as the weapon is GPS guided. You realise that the operating height for a B-2 is up near airliner cruising height? The whole point of stealth is to be up out of the way using guided munitions. I find it laughable that you think the B-2 was down a few hundred feet over Belgrade?
Now your temper is slipping. Absent of facts you resort to poorly written personal attacks.
By the way from what I remember Serbia looks very pretty from the air.
Didn't see much of your air force, though. The F-15s got there first.
http://www.ansphoto.hu/stealth1.jpg
Pretty country, jolly people...
Good night,
but don`t worry, I do like America but also I like my country. And Im not one of those that will trash America cause what Clinton did to my country.
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