Free Republic

BRUSSELS (AFP) - EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana hit back at criticism from Serbs after violent riots erupted in Kosovo, saying the international community was not to blame for the flare-up. Solana, speaking a day after he was jeered by displaced Serbs during a visit to the UN-run province, said: "I would not say that it is a failure of strategy of the European Union (news - web sites). "I think it is a failure of the behavior of the people of Kosovo. We are not responsible for the behavior of the people of Kosovo," he told reporters. "We...

<p>The Balkan province of Kosovo has recently suffered the worst flare-up of violence since it was freed from Serb oppression in 1999 by U.S.-led military intervention. The outburst left 28 people dead, scores of houses burned and thousands of people displaced from their homes. Its intensity reflected the bitter reality of Kosovo, where an overwhelmingly ethnic Albanian majority and a dwindling Serb minority show no sign of being willing to live together.</p>

Eighteen KFOR soldiers have been wounded during an attack by extremist Albanians on the church of the Holy King Uros in Urosevac. A Greek soldier has sustained second degree burns and three KFOR vehicles have been burned, KFOR advised on Saturday evening. In a detailed report of events in Urosevac on Wednesday afternoon, it is reported that a group of about 500 extremist Albanians attacked the observation checkpoint guarded by Greek soldiers in front of the church in Urosevac with rocks and Molotov cocktails. According to a statement issued from the U.S. military base Bondsteel, during the course of the...

BURNING CHURCHES (HUMANITARIAN'S ANTHEM) MIDI: CLICK HERE for Burning Bridges (Curb/Schifrin) Christians all tried to warn me But I held my head up high All the time they warned me But I only passed them by They all tried to tell me But I guess I didn't care I turned my back and Left them standing there All the burning churches that have fallen after me All the murdered Christians and the burning monasteries Everyone I left behind each time I closed the door Burning churches lost forevermore Joey tried to help me find a soul A while ago When...

Dear Freepers, There has been some discussion on the FR board lately about the current violence in Kosovo. Being on-scene in the region, we wanted to share some insights on the current situation and its background- as well as potential future developments. Please continue to end of post for a collection of links to vital stories from our archive. yesterday's article begins: "...The seemingly spontaneous street war that erupted yesterday between Albanians and Serbs in Kosovo confirms exactly what kind of a ‘success’ the West has created in Kosovo. At least 22 people, including a French KFOR peacekeeper reported dead...

<p>Three years ago, Spain's national police stormed the apartment of Jamal Zougam, a 30-year-old Moroccan immigrant who ran a cellphone business in Madrid. Among items they seized: phone numbers for suspected terrorists, a video of Islamic warriors fighting Russian troops near Chechnya, and four books in Arabic on aspects of jihad, such as how to treat prisoners of war.</p>

Seventeen Kosovars have been killed in the worst outbreak of ethnic violence in that province since NATO forces arrived in 1999, NATO officials said. A company of U.S. soldiers now assigned to the stabilization force in Bosnia is moving to Kosovo to beef up NATO forces in the area. Another two companies are standing by, said a NATO spokesman. Six people were killed in Mitrovica, three in Lipljan, three in Caglavica, two in Urosevac, one in Pec, one in Gnjilane and one in the Kosovar capital of Pristina. The rioting reportedly began in Mitrovica, when ethnic Albanians gathered to protest...

Sts. Cyril and Methodius Seminary in Prizren torched - Fate of eight Serbs, including two children, unknown - Fr. Dragan Kojic in Vitina wounded and requesting urgent assistance ERP KIM Info Service Gracanica, March 17, 2004 18:05 Albanian extremists have just set fire to Sts. Cyril and Methodius Seminary in Prizren which temporarily housed eight Serb laypeople, including two children and one pregnant woman. The fate of these Serbs is unknown. The Seminary was not protected by German KFOR. The unbridled rioting of the Albanians throughout Prizren continues, according to the monks of Holy Archangels Monastery and priest-monk Miron Kosac...

Three people have been killed and twenty others wounded by gunshot in Mitrovica, sources at the Emergency at the Emergency center in Mitrovica confirmed.

17:37 PRISTINA , March 15 (Tanjug) - UNMIK representatives on Monday handed over the remains of Milovan Vukmirovic to his family in Tomic near Babin Most, central Kosovo-Metohija. Vukmirovic's daughter Milijana told Tanjug that her father had been kidnapped on October 9, 1999 and that his family had not known whether he was alive or not until a week ago. She announced that she would call on competent organs to find out the truth about her father's fate.

We should be treating this guy as a patriot -- someone who risked his life to do the right thing. Instead, he's viewed as a traitor or pariah -- certainly by his family. As he told the CBC, 21-year-old Abdurahman Khadr turned against his family and worked inside the al-Qaida terrorist organization for the CIA and Western interests. As a consequence he's reviled by relatives who support al-Qaida, and knows his life is in danger. What is so disgraceful and disquieting is that his father, brothers, sisters, and relatives who have Canadian citizenship, mostly support al-Qaida. His father, who was...

<p>CAIRO, Egypt (AP) — Egypt acknowledged for the first time Thursday that it is holding Mohammed al-Zawahri, the brother of al-Qaida's No. 2 man.</p> <p>Al-Zawahri had been believed to be in Egyptian police custody for at least three years, but the government never acknowledged it. He was sentenced to death in absentia for his role in Islamic Jihad attacks inside Egypt.</p>

Al Qaeda finalized 9/11 in Tarragona The mastermind of the attack says that the date was set in August The Yemeni Ramizi bin al Shibh, the mastermind of 9/11 who was captured in 2002 in Pakistan and held by the US in Guantanamo, has admitted to interrogators that he met in July, 2001 somewhere on the coast of Tarragona with Mohammed Atta, 33 years old, the leader of the suicide squad that attacked the Twin Towers in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, causing 3,016 deaths. According to the Guardia Civil, Bin Al Shibh told his captors that the...

The marathon trial of former president of Yugoslavia Slobodan Milosevic has reached its second anniversary in February 2004, with Serbs continuing to take the brunt of the sentences meted out by the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague. It is ironic then that ethnic Albanian members of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) - trained and encouraged in the past by the West - have been free to sell Semtex explosives to undercover journalists from Britain. In late 2003, the journalists posed as Irish terrorists determined to blow up British targets with their booty. Furthermore, one of the KLA men...

PRIZREN, Feb 3 (Tanjug) - Monks of the monastery of Saint Archangels in Prizren can no longer count on the escort of German KFOR, who have also banned them from using the military power generator, while the duty priest at Vladicanski dvor in Prizren is being denied food, the Raska-Prizren Eparchy stated on Tuesday.

THE BALKANS: The War on Terror Moves In December 11, 2003: SFOR reported a SFOR peacekeepers "sealed off" an area near Zenica, Bosnia. The operation included ground troops and helicopters. SFOR was responding to a tip that certain houses in the area held arms and munitions linked to a "terrorist group." A subsequent report said the terror group could be Al Qaeada. There was no follow-up report after the operation.

U.S. Base in Greece Stockpiles Equipment Thu Jan 22,11:11 AM ET By MIRON VAROUHAKIS, Associated Press Writer SOUDA BAY, Greece - The U.S. military base in Greece is stockpiling emergency medical equipment to dispatch if terrorists strike with biochemical or radiation devices during the Olympics. The rapid response unit at the Souda Bay Naval Base on the southern island of Crete is part of an international network being assembled to help safeguard the Aug. 13-29 Games — the first summer Olympics since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. "If the commander of the base calls...

Germans study claims by source tying Iran (Islamic Regime) to 9/11.. Support the movement at:ActivistChat.com and gotamullah.com! WASHINGTON -- In sorting out which parts of the story told by Hamid Reza Zakeri are true, German federal police have their work cut out for them. The Bundeskriminalamt, known as the BKA, has produced Zakeri as a surprise witness in the German government's troubled case against Abdelghani Mzoudi and declared that Zakeri can link Mzoudi to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. But before a five-judge panel Thursday in a Hamburg courtroom, prosecutors acknowledged that BKA agents still are assessing Zakeri's credibility. They...

Islamist Recruitment in Bosnia - A "White" Al-Qaeda 10:15 Jan 21, '04 / 27 Tevet 5764 (IsraelNN.com) Serbian news outlets have been reporting with increasing intensification in recent days on attempts by Islamist terrorist groups, including Al-Qaeda, to recruit soldiers among Bosnia's Muslims. The independent Serbian news agency FoNet reported on Tuesday that Muslims from Bosnia-Herzegovina are being recruited to join the what has been called "white Al-Qaeda". Slobodan Radulj, former member of Bosnia-Herzegovina's anti-terrorist task force and an adviser to the Serb member of the presidency of Bosnia-Herzegovina, told the Nezavisne Novine Serbian daily, "Reports by international intelligence services...

A secret report to the United Nations by French investigator Jean-Charles Brisard names seven prominent Saudi financiers of terror; the number matches the seven Saudis mentioned in a 11/26/02 Washington Post article, though it's not known if all the names are the same. The Saudis mentioned by Brisard are: Khalid bin Mahfouz; Yassin al-Qadi; Saleh Abdullah Kamel; Abdullah Suleiman al-Rajhi; Adel Abdul Jalil Batterjee; Mohammed Hussein al-Amoudi; and Wa'el Hamza Julaidan (who has had his assets frozen by the US [State Department, 9/6/02]). Brisard says al-Qaeda has received between $300 million and $500 million over the last 10 years from...