Posted on 02/21/2008 11:04:42 AM PST by 11th_VA
BELGRADE, Serbia - Serb rioters broke into the U.S. Embassy Thursday and set fire to an office after a massive protest against Kosovo's independence that drew an estimated 150,000 people.
Masked attackers broke into the building, which has been closed this week, and tried to throw furniture from an office. A blaze broke out inside one of the offices and parts of the facade also caught fire.
Authorities drove armored jeeps down the street and fired tear gas to clear the crowd. The protesters dispersed into side streets where they continued clashing with authorities.
The neighboring Croatian Embassy also was attacked by the same group of protesters.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack strongly urged the Serbian government to protect the U.S. Embassy. He said the U.S. ambassador was at his home and was in contact with U.S. officials.
More than a dozen nations have recognized Kosovo's declaration of independence on Sunday, including the United States, Britain, France and Germany.
But the declaration by Kosovo's ethnic Albanian leadership has been rejected by Serbia's government and the ethnic Serbians who populate northern Kosovo. Russia, China and numerous other nations have also condemned the declaration, saying it sets a precedent that separatist groups around the world will seek to emulate.
Kosovo, which is 90 percent ethnic Albanian, has not been under Belgrade's control since 1999, when NATO launched airstrikes to halt a Serbian crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists. A U.N. mission has governed Kosovo since, with more than 16,000 NATO troops and KFOR, a multiethnic force, policing the province.
But Serbia — and Kosovo's Serbs, who make up less than 10 percent of Kosovo's population — refuse to give up Kosovo, a territory considered the ancient cradle of Serbs' state and religion.
Earlier Thursday, police estimated that about 150,000 people had attended a rally in the Serbian capital. The crowd waved Serbian flags and carried signs reading "Stop USA terror." One group set fire to a red-and-black Albanian flag.
The U.S. embassy in Belgrade burns after masked attackers broke into the building and set an office on fire at the end of a massive protest against Western-backed Kosovo independence, in the Serbian capital, Thursday, Feb. 21, 2008. More than 150,000 Serbs gathered at the rally vowing to retake the territory which is viewed as Serbia's religious and national heartland. (AP Photo)
Jorge the Mexican has made Aztlan inevitable.
Some of the jihadi apologists here may start attacking the validity of your service, just beware.
we should tell the kosovo albanians that the serbs should rule koxovo as it is their country.
you can’t come into a country though immigration and then decide it’s your country when you have driven off the native population and then be rewarded off America and Britain
Just what on earth is Bush thinking what with him rewarding these albanian terrorists
You know, just like how WWI started.
How about "thank you psychotic Serbian mob" instead?
>>Are we willing to kill Serbs and Russians in a ground war over this postage sized future European Palestine?<<
And will it begin with a “shot heard around the world?”
You are a moron.
I do. Heh! Several of them worked for a company I was with last year. One of them worked for me....for a while.
Lets just say they are indescribable.
That's a diplomatic way of putting it. LOL
It will be a PA and African equivalent of at least 600 million.
But he didn't recognize Kosovo independence, did he? Bush managed to open that can of worms all on his own. Someone should have told the president this wasn't the place in that Beach Boy's song.
Amerika (sorry, that’s what we has become on this issue) has now joined the likes of the Ottoman Empire, Fascist Italy, NAZI Germany, the Communists and clinton’s NATO in the rape of Serbia!
I hope not but Jorge has repeatedly proved himself an idiot.
>>...can’t believe we’re being this stupid.<<
I don’t think we are.
Which means our motives (and information) are not all on the table.
So was Bill’s Monica’s War.
Don’t insult morons like that.
Serbia is probably going to be going to war with Kosovo, and probably no later than April or May. The declaration of independence by Kosovo was an act of war against Serbia. Our recognition of the independent status of Serbia is just as much an act of war against Serbia as the Serbian Government's failure to provide protection for our embassy.
The US Embassy is sovereign US territory and it is up the United States to provide protection for it. The embassy was abandoned before this protest. The US knew it was going to happen and instead of standing and fighting, the US abandoned ship and essentially invited the protesters to burn the place to the ground.
Well,
The US executed a war over a decade ago, of which the Europeans where the political instruments. Today the Europeans more than anyone else have plans of how the future development of the Balkans and the political landscape should look. However, it is of course always “about the oil,” “Bush’s fault,” and “America” which should do this or that different. All eyes are always on us, for we are the big kid on the block the leader of the pact in the West. However, from an international tribunal in Europe, the nations that present day have large numbers of troops on the ground in this region, to the present day Kosovo plans; most of this is a European doing, a European problem, in which we a decade ago were pulled in on because as a NATO member state and allied nation we had obligations towards our partners once called upon. Remember that when the Germans say “Nein” in Iraq, or that they want to do as little as possible in Afghanistan, Somalia, not grant the US over flight rights etc.
You better not make a peep when the Aztlaners seize your home.
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