Posted on 04/29/2007 2:35:12 PM PDT by kronos77
"With the blood of these shahids, with the lots of suffering of innocent people…we hope in the near future to be the newest state in the world."
Here's an intriguing story, sent in to us by Jim Jatras, Director of the American Council for Kosovo and a member of the Jihad Watch Board.
"Kosovo's top Islamic leader asks local Muslims for support," by Niraj Warikoo in the Detroit Free Press:
The top Islamic leader of Kosovo spoke to Muslims in metro Detroit today, asking them to support the independence of his province.
Mufti Naim Ternava, president of the Islamic Community of Kosovo, is in Michigan as part of a visit to the U.S. to garner support for making Kosovo an independent country. The Muslim-majority province is currently a part of Serbia.
"Pray for the independence of Kosovo," Ternava said through a translator during the Friday sermon to about two hundred Muslims at the Muslim Center of Detroit on Davison Ave. "Thousands of miles away from here, there are Muslim brothers in Kosovo who suffered for many, many years and who are close religious brothers with you."
Critics of Kosovo's independence worry that Kosovo would be a hotbed of extremism if it became a separate country, but Ternava and his assistant said that Kosovo's Muslim community is tolerant and modern.
Ternava also spoke with Muslims at the Southfield office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and at the Albanian Islamic Center in Harper Woods.
During his talk at the Muslim Center, Ternava said that "thousands of people…went as shahids (martyrs) during all these sufferings" that Kosovo went through.
"With the blood of these shahids, with the lots of suffering of innocent people…we hope in the near future to be the newest state in the world," he said.
Ternava also urged the crowd to follow the teachings of Islam.
"Islam is such a comprehensive religion which includes all what the family needs and what an individual needs in this world," he said. "Help others to understand it. Teach it to others."
During his U.S. trip, which is sponsored by the U.S. State Dept., Ternava is also visiting New York, and Washington D.C. to meet with Muslims and State Dept. officials.
A jihad center; a den of iniquity..
Allow me to ping two for Free Republic’s most notorious supporters of the new Jihadist state of Kosovo for you.
In case you start to wonder, their responses will be as incomprehensible as you imagine.
:) within less that 10 years, the UN will be sending troops to the U.S. to quell the violence and establish order................
This is going to be fun.
By Paul Taylor
Sat Apr 28, 1:32 PM ET
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Kosovo will be independent with or without a United Nations resolution, and Russia should back an agreement to protect the Kosovo Serb minority, the United States said on Saturday.
Assistant Secretary of State Dan Fried said it was possible the latest Russian criticism of U.N. mediator Marti Ahtisaari's plan for the final status of the breakaway Serbian province meant Moscow intended to block a resolution.
"We hope that Russia understands that Kosovo is going to be independent one way or another," Fried told Reuters in an interview at a Brussels Forum on transatlantic relations.
"It will either be done in a controlled, supervised way that provides for the well-being of the Serbian people, or it will take place in an uncontrolled way and the Kosovo Serbs will suffer the most, which would be terrible."
Moscow has repeatedly said it will not accept a solution which is unacceptable to Serbia, which is adamantly opposed to any form of independence for Kosovo.
A U.N. Security Council fact-finding mission, which visited Kosovo at Russia's suggestion, wrapped up its visit on Saturday saying they would deliberate on the proposal for its independence without setting deadlines.
"Deciding on important issues should never be hostage to predetermined deadlines," Belgian ambassador and mission head Johan Verbeke told a news conference in Pristina.
Ahtisaari, a former Finnish president, proposes supervised independence with a strong role for an international presence to protect minority rights.
Fried acknowledged the European Union could be split over whether or not to recognize Kosovo if there was no U.N. resolution and Kosovo's overwhelming Albanian majority declared independence unilaterally.
"I see absolutely no advantage to doing this any other way than through a Security Council resolution. I see merely disadvantages," Fried said. "The alternatives are all worse.
"A divided Europe is a bad thing in general and a terrible thing in this particular case."
A resolution would provide legal authority to protect the Kosovo Serbs and help the Europeans to unite, he said.
Kosovo has been an international protectorate since NATO waged an air war in 1999 to drive out Serbian forces and end ethnic cleansing. Some 90 percent of the province's 2 million population are Albanians.
"Kosovo is in the list of problems that do not improve with age and neglect. The situation there is not inherently stable," said Fried.
Former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Richard Holbrooke told the Brussels Forum the next few weeks would be a fundamental test of Russian President Vladimir Putin's view of his role in the world.
"If he vetoes the Ahtisaari plan in the Security Council, there will be a unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo. The United States will recognize them, I hope the same day ... Some of the EU will, some won't," Holbrooke said.
"There will probably be violence on the ground and it will be Russia's fault."
Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt told the Forum he expected a period of "diplomatic trench warfare" over Kosovo at the United Nations and suggested the EU should take the lead in seeking a compromise solution, which would take time.
Asked about Holbrooke's scenario of unilateral independence, he said: "That is playing with fire."
(Additional reporting by Mark John)
Well, Mark and I are the deorum-ex-machina who have been driving American Balkan policy for the last 7 years from our perch atop Mt. Olympus, and we find no greater joy in life than aggravating the FR Balkan thread hoi polloi.
Fun indeed.
Mark is zour boyfriend.
No one—least of all the US—should recognize an independent Kosovo if it declares unilaterally.
It would not only be a muslim state, but a Neanderthal state!!!! And it would become an instant pre-9/11/01 Afghanistan, in terms of providing a hideout for terrorists and criminals.
The best outcome would be the Serbian reconquest of Kosovo, as in 1912.
“Well, Mark and I are the deorum-ex-machina who have been driving American Balkan policy for the last 7 years”
Osama, Adolph, is that you guys!?
Actually, the best outcome would be a partition allowing Serb regions and Serb monasteries to remain within Serbia while the rest go to the Albanians.
You might want to consider reading Edwin Newman’s book “Strictly Speaking.”
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