Posted on 11/10/2001 8:42:46 PM PST by Pericles
Saturday November 10 12:16 PM ET
Macedonian Soldier Wounded
By ALEKSANDAR VASOVIC, Associated Press Writer
SKOPJE, Macedonia (AP) - Ethnic Albanian militants attacked Macedonian soldiers and wounded one of them, a military spokesman said Saturday, describing the skirmish as a serious threat to peace-building attempts.
Col. Blagoja Markovski, an army spokesman said the soldier was lightly wounded late Friday just outside the northwestern city of Tetovo, in ``a direct attack on our positions.''
He described the alleged attack as the most serious since ethnic Albanian militants in Macedonia agreed to stop fighting and handed in more than 4,000 weapons to NATO in late September in exchange for constitutional amendments granting greater rights to their large minority. The agreement was a part of an August accord engineered by the United States and the European Union.
Markovski said Macedonia's security forces reported 75 other, ``mainly sporadic and random shootings in the wider Tetovo area,'' and in the Kumanovo region late Friday and early Saturday.
There was no independent confirmation of the incidents.
Also Saturday, Interior Minister Ljube Boskoski announced that a special commission would start investigating a suspected mass grave in the Tetovo area, believed to contain the bodies of six Macedonians abducted by ethnic Albanian militants earlier this year.
``The exhumation would start Sunday or Monday, the site is marked and the police will secure the area,'' he said, without disclosing the exact location of the suspected grave.
The commission responsible is comprised of Boskoski, the public prosecutor, and representatives of the European Union, NATO and the U.N. war crimes tribunal.
At least 12 Macedonian civilians are still missing and presumed dead, say government officials.
On Friday, the presidents of Yugoslavia and Macedonia pledged to launch a joint struggle against any resurgent ethnic Albanian militant activity, promising defense cooperation and coordinated security efforts along their borders. The leaders did not give specifics on the plans.
Yugoslav and Macedonian authorities have claimed that ethnic Albanian insurgents are nothing more than terrorist groups. The ethnic Albanian rebels have said they are fighting for greater rights.
Talks on Macedonian constitutional amendments - part of the peace plan, and meant to give the ethnic Albanians greater rights - have been bogged down in parliamentary maneuvering. Parliament was to reconvene later on Saturday to resume debate which was adjourned Friday, immediately after the beginning of the session.
Signaling trouble ahead, Zehir Bekteshi, a spokesman for the key ethnic Albanian Party for Democratic Prosperity, reiterated that his group would oppose the constitutional amendments because of language it says suggests that the Macedonians are the dominant group in the country.
Are the following details at all accurate or the fevered inventions of a novelist manque?
I think you make a critical error in failing to differentiate between the coming Kosovo Liberation Army Winter offensive, and the planned Islamic entente Balkan attacks during Ramadan. They are two separate and distinct campaigns.
The KLA will attack to further its grip on the Tetovo Republic and prepare for next year's campaign versus Greece. The fire elements of this offensive will seek to kill Macedonian soldiers, police officers, and government officials -- while increasing pressures on the corrupt Skopje government and Parliament.
The maneuver element of this fight will serve to further tighten the noose around KFOR supply lines to Kosovo. Unfortunately there may be more traffic "accidents" this Winter than normal on the Skopje-Prishtina road -- oh well...
Three individuals can provide focus for students of this campaign...
As mentioned, Craig Jenness has given the KLA the green light. He is notoriously anti-Brit -- whether cuckolding his Brit buddy with the beautiful Barbara in Sarajevo during the Kosovo war, or taking down the Canadian second in command of the Tirana stationed OSCE KVM elements during the same campaign -- he will always stick it to London if it furthers his own career.
He is a "fixer" -- and he has the KLA ready to strike.
Keep an eye on the movements of former US ambassador to Bosnia Thomas Miller. Embroiled in scandal, he will seek to save his career as the new ambassador to Greece the only way he can -- by taking down November 17. He has been ordered to do this by the White House -- he can only do it with the help of his KLA buddies.
Should he pop up in Bosnia again before the end of the year, make a notation somewhere...
Finally there is the American operator known only as "Nomad." Reliable sources within the KLA advise this close friend of the Congressman to soon reappear in Skopje. This is significant and signals the US is working closely once again with K-6 cells in the capital.
Nomad is good -- very good. If he is in Skopje again it means someone at a very high level is going to be hit or the entire government is coming down...
The KLA soon to stun the world once again...
Bosnia now resembles cold war Berlin to a certain degree -- a divided entity crawling with spooks and free lancers that could spark World War III. There America and the Brits are weak and the Islamic entente is strong.
Al Qaeda attacks there are not an offensive except perhaps in the same design as Tet in 1968. That military victory for the US ended up losing the political war and is the reason the capital is known as Ho Chi Minh City today...
Beginning sometime around the first of the year look for some two thousand Bosnian Serbs to start getting paid by the US government as the result of a "Privatisation" deal. It is expected that several hundred former RS special forces types will find their way on these payrolls.
These warriors may end up being "loaned" out in the RS to assist SFOR in security purposes. This is how serious the US believes the Islamic entente threat in Bosnia is.
Twenty Americans killed in Bosnia wins the Islamic entente a tremendous psychological victory as well as forcing Americans to reexamine this failed mission. Sarajevo is the capital and this is where the attacks should come. The Brigade is strongest in Zenica, but few Americans congregate there.
I would look for a suicide attack on the Internet Cafe (the club not a place with computers) or its equivalent. The NGO and embassy crowd in Sarajevo are very cliquish and they always find one spot to congregate in for drinks and dancing on a Friday night.
No security at these places and no emergency exits. One trigger man wrapped in dynamite to the dance floor, one shooter down the long axis -- and a couple grenade tossing, pistol firing watchers at the exit...
Properly planned this attack will kill about thirty to forty ex-pats and wound another hundred -- more if the exit is properly blocked...
An attack on the Harp in Sarajevo -- where the Brits hang out is less likely. A couple old SAS types keep pretty good watch on that place...
Once this attack goes I would suspect the Islamic entente to attempt a modern day "Night of the Long Knives" -- where their veteran killers would storm individual residences and team houses in trying to up the count...
Don't kid yourself, despite five plus years keeping the peace in Bosnia, Westerners have no clue about Sarajevo. If you are an American or Brit there then you are a dead man walking if the opposition decides you are going down...
That's just the way it is...
So I would suggest you look at these coming fights separately if you so desire. Two entirely different struggles, two entirely different methodologies and axis of attack.
The safest American is the soldier "fighting" Afghanistan. The American in Bosnia or ground zero of "Allah's Suitcase is the next casualty...
The forces of freedom on the move. Europe trembles.
Yugo intelligence has warned of the influx of Al-Qaeda cadres entering the Balkans since the air war in Afghanistan. These cadres are linking up with Albanians of the KLA in Kosovo and streaming over from Kosovo into positions around Tetovo. Tensions have been fanned by reports in nationalist media, dismissed by diplomats and even the moderate defense ministry as anti-reform disinformation, that rebels are remobilizing with reinforcements streaming in by night from Kosovo.
The Yugoslavs and FYROMacedonians were stunned that NATO chooses to ignore this information, and even ridicule it. NATO to FYROM: Those rebels are hairy Albanians not Osama bin Laden's mujahideen This has forced Yugoslavia and FYROM to unite.
NATO is either blind or politically compromised due to its past support for the Albanians.
NATO is finished as a force in the Balkans. The Albanians have taken their measure of NATO's capabilities and have brushed them aside. NATO will be left alone for now until the word is given Christmas time by Al-Qaeda. Camp Bondsteel will provide a plump feast for the holidays. The attacks will follow Ramadan as the Koran instructs:
"When the sacred months are over slay the idolaters wherever you find them. Arrest them, besiege them, and lie in ambush everywhere for them. If they repent and take to prayer and pay the alms-tax, let them go their way. Allah is forgiving and merciful." (9:4, Quran)
Al-Qaeda will strike where the striking is good.
More to come.
I can not stress the following point any stronger:
"When the sacred months are over slay the idolaters wherever you find them. Arrest them, besiege them, and lie in ambush everywhere for them. If they repent and take to prayer and pay the alms-tax, let them go their way. Allah is forgiving and merciful." (9:4, Quran)
Camp Bondsteel's keys are in Kacanik. The Barbarians are at the gate.
because nato and the u.s. HAVE NO BACKBONE to confront the kla for fear of taking casulaties!!!
that could be the demise of the u.s. in a future major war, the fear of taking casulaties and losing poll numbers!!!
Where is CNN? Shouldn't they have fallen up all their claims of mass graves and genocide?
``The exhumation would start Sunday or Monday, the site is marked and the police will secure the area,'' he said, without disclosing the exact location of the suspected grave.
The commission responsible is comprised of Boskoski, the public prosecutor, and representatives of the European Union, NATO and the U.N. war crimes tribunal.
At least 12 Macedonian civilians are still missing and presumed dead, say government officials.
what say you???
u.s. knew it was being used to transmit communication to serb ground units after radio towers were blown up at slobo. estate!!!
Most of the rest of the world is based on the groupings of like ethnicities.
English is a limite language when it comes to things like this. For instance are Turks who live in Germany German? Of course not. They are ethnic Turkish residents or citizens of Germany.
Albania is the nation of Albanians. Albanians outside of Albania are ethnic Albanian citizens of that none Albanian nation.
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