Free Republic

24 July 2008 Pristina _ The Islamic Community of Kosovo says that many Muslim states are to recognise Pristina’s independence from Serbia in the very near future. Naim Ternava, the head of Kosovo’s Islamic Community, said Thursday that this organisation is lobbying for the further recognition of Kosovo’s independence. “We are working hard, together with Kosovo’s institutions, to make sure many Islamic countries recognise Kosovo,� Ternava said. He made the comment after meeting Kosovo’s Parliament speaker Jakup Krasniqi. Kosovo declared independence from Serbia on February 17, an act that has been recognised by 43 countries so far. However recognitions have...

U.S.: Control to be restored in N. Kosovo 23 July 2008 | 12:01 | Source: Tanjug WASHINGTON -- The U.S. State Dept. wants the international community to take control of northern Kosovo as soon as possible. “Some sort of presence of the international community should exist in that region and it cannot be exempt from control, or be outside Kosovo,“ said U.S. Secretary of State in charge of European affairs Daniel Fried in Brussels. “Life in northern Kosovo should be returned to normal,“ Fried said, adding that the international community should act carefully in resolving this issue. He also called...

WASHINGTON (AFP) — US President George W. Bush promised Kosovo's visiting president and prime minister Monday he would try to convince more nations to embrace formal diplomatic ties with their young country. "I pledged that the United States would continue to work with those nations that have not recognized an independent Kosovo to convince them to do so as quickly as possible," Bush told reporters. He spoke as he met in his Oval Office with Kosovo President Fatmir Sejdiu and Prime Minister Hashim Thaci, who were making their first US visit as leaders of an independent Kosovo. "I'm a strong...

LONDON: Two Indians are among five illegal immigrants who allegedly smuggled themselves into a high-security British military base on a convoy of army trucks returning from Kosovo. Police said the Indians were between 24 and 26 years of age. The others included two Afghans between 16 and 18 years of age, and a 15-year-old Iranian. The immigrants’ names have not been goven out as yet. Stunned soldiers had to wrestle two of the stowaways to the ground after discovering them as the vehicles returned from Kosovo on Tuesday, said reports. Another three men leapt from the lorries in a desperate...

16 July 2008 Gjakova _ The UN authorities in Kosovo have pledged to hold talks with council officials in Gjakova after it emerged a park is being built over the remains of a Serbian Orthodox Church. Local Serb radio KIM found that the construction of the park in Gjakova (known in Serbian as Djakovica), an overwhelmingly ethnic Albanian town in western Kosovo, is now in its final stages. A metre of soil was placed on top of the church’s foundations and trees and flowers planted over it. Some 20 workers from the Bala construction company were finishing work at the...

Last update: 3:22 p.m. EDT July 17, 2008 GRACANICA, Serbia, July 17, 2008 /PRNewswire-USNewswire via COMTEX/ -- The following statement was issued today by His Grace ARTEMIJE, Bishop of Ras and Prizren, and pastor of Orthodox Christians in the Serbian province of Kosovo and Metohija: "On July 21, President George W. Bush is scheduled to meet with Hashim Thaci, styled by some 'Prime Minister' of the separatist Albanian Muslim administration in the Serbian province of Kosovo and Metohija. As pastor of the Orthodox Christian people of Kosovo, I protest to the fullest possible degree the fact that President Bush would...

S ixty prominent leaders from Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Qatar, and Iraq have supported development of closer ties with Kosovo and fast recognition of Kosovo independence by the Arab states. The conclusion came from the conference “Kosova and the Arab world� organized in Amman, Jordan, by the Al Quds Center for Political Studies and Forum 2015 from Prishtina. Speakers at the conference were Kosovo intellectuals like Veton Surroi, Muhamet Mustafa and Qemalj Morina, and influential intellectuals and civil society leaders from the Arab world. “Kosovo topic arose interest among the Arab participants at the conference, who saw it important to...

It's a centuries-old tradition, but even modern-day Albania is still plagued by blood feuds. Thousands in the country don't leave their homes for fear of falling victim to revenge murders....

8 July 2008 | 16:36 | Source: Beta PRIŠTINA -- Representatives of civil society in Kosovo will start lobbying for Kosovo's recognition, write Priština media. Daily Koha Ditore claims that there is financial support from George Soros and the Kosovo Fund for Open Society: “The lobbying group will include Veton Suroi and Blerim Shala, the coordinator of the former Kosovo negotiating team, Luan Shllaku, the director of the Kosovo Fund for Open Society, and Muhamet Mustafa, the dean of the Reinvest University.� The group‘s work will be based on the plan and recommendations of former international envoy to Kosovo Martti...

Desperate to escape unemployment in their isolated enclaves, Kosovo Serbs are journeying as far as Iraq and Afghanistan to make a living. “Although before I left I had worked in management, gaining experience in a different atmosphere, culture and environment seemed a precious opportunity.� All the Kosovo Serbs who had gone to these far-off war zones agreed they took risks with their personal safety but none felt a dilemma over getting work through US companies. Indeed, Branislav Nikolic was decorated by the US in Iraq for the courage he showed under fire. After an attack on the US base in...

Skopje, Macedonia - Nine people were wounded, several of them critically, in a gangland-style shootout in renewed violence in Macedonia, authorities in Skopje confirmed Friday. The drive-by attack from two cars, involving automatic weapons and shotguns, happened late Thursday in Radusa, a village in a tense section of Macedonia dominated by ethnic Albanians. The details remain sketchy and police said it was still investigating. One of the wounded men was Besfor Haliti, son of three-time lawmaker Rafiz Haliti, a prominent member of the Democratic Union for Integration (DUI). In a telephone interview with Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa, the elder Haliti said...

The United States will pledge $400 million in aid to Kosovo next week at a donors conference expected to raise more than $1 billion for the newly independent state, a senior U.S. official said on Wednesday..... The Bush administration requested the bulk of its pledge from the U.S. Congress more than a year ago, well before Kosovo declared independence, out of a certainty that the region would need financial help whenever it declared independence.

The travel section of the paper featured a story on Kosovo the other day with a recommendation that readers visit this latest "must see" spot on the globe. It made me laugh. Almost forty years ago--1971 to be exact -- I traveled in what was then called Yugoslavia and is now called Kosovo. The memories of that trip remain so vivid and so utterly at odds with this report.

On February 17, 2008, Kosovo declared independence from Serbia. Some are concerned about what NATO, the United Nations, and the European Union have nurtured there since the military and humanitarian intervention in 1999. James Jatras, a U.S.-based advocate for the Serbian Orthodox Community, put it bluntly last year when he said Kosovo was a “a beachhead into the rest of Europe” for “radical Muslims” and “terrorist elements.” It’s an assertion without evidence. “We’ve been here for so long,” said United States Army Sergeant Zachary Gore in Eastern Kosovo, “and not seen any evidence of it, that we’ve reached the assumption...

[JURIST] The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) [official website] announced Wednesday that it will prepare a report [press release] on allegations of organ trafficking in Kosovo. Former prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) Carla Del Ponte [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] has alleged in a new book [JURIST report] that about 300 Serbian and other non-Albanian prisoners were victims of organ trafficking during the 1998-1999 war in Kosovo, but that a 2003 probe by her ICTY team failed to obtain sufficient evidence to prosecute. In response, parliamentarians submitted a motion [text] in...

American Deputy Secretary of State John Bolton believes the United States committed a serious mistake when it recognized the independence of Kosovo. He fears such policy may escalate tensions in the Balkans. In an interview for the Russian news agency Interfax, Mr. Bolton remarked that Washington’s policy was on autopilot since the regime of the late Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic. But the situation has changed considerably after the democratic government took over, which, in Mr. Bolton’s opinion, makes support for Kosovo’s independence a pointless atavism.

Serbs in protest against mosque construction 26 June 2008 | 15:19 | Source: FoNet BERIVOJCE -- Serbs from the village of Berivojce near Kosovska Kamenica are obstructing work on a building site where Albanians have begun illegally building a mosque. The Serbs are demanding that UNMIK and the Albanian authorities in Kamenica put a stop to the work and the “further irritation of the Serb populace”, reads a statement from the Kosovo Ministry. Over a hundred Serbs are protesting. One Serb representative, Boža Stanojević, said that a number of Kosovo Police Service members were harassing and provoking Serb protestors. “It...

Masters and Servant The Czech Republic could do the world a favor by acting independent For a country nearly 20 years removed from Soviet domination, the Czech Republic doesn’t always act like a sovereign and independent state — at least when it comes to its relationship with my country, Big Brother across the Atlantic. Indeed, at times it seems that Czechs have only exchanged one set of overseers for another. Case in point: Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek’s March 30 statement, “If we did not have to recognize Kosovo, I would never do it.” A few weeks later, Foreign Affairs Minister...

Pristina _ Spain is lobbying against Kosovo's independence in the countries of Latin America, a former British Minister for Europe says. In a comment in today's Independent newspaper, published in London, Denis Macshane writes that “key European Union nations like Spain, Greece, Romania and Slovakia weaken the unity of Europe by refusing to recognise Kosovo”. “Greece blocks Macedonia’s EU and NATO ambitions, while Spain lobbies in Latin America against recognition of Kosovo”, writes MacShane, adding that “this bodes ill for the notion that a united EU diplomacy of weight can develop”. MacShane outlined some of the recent developments that have...

MOSCOW, June 23 (RIA Novosti) - Russia is not opposed to an EU mission replacing the UN force in Kosovo, but the move should have the formal backing of the UN Security Council and Serbia, a senior Russian diplomat said on Monday. "We are not opposed to the European Union taking on part of the responsibility for what is happening in Kosovo," Vladimir Chizhov, envoy to the European Communities, said adding a European mission should be approved by a UN Security Council resolution and Belgrade. Chizhov said UN Security Council Resolution 1244 was currently the only legal basis for an...

A gigantic poster of genocidal Bosnian Serb war criminal Radovan Karadzic hung on the outside wall of a hideous communist-style apartment block. “Get a picture of that,” I said to my friend and traveling companion Sean LaFreniere as I drove our rented car through the outer suburbs of Serbia's capital Belgrade. I had the wheel and he had the camera. “Too late,” he said. We were driving fast on a four-lane road and were almost out of the city. Our road trip from Serbia to Kosovo via Bosnia, Croatia, and Montenegro was just beginning. “That’s okay,” I said. “We’ll probably...

British Nazi-Al Qaeda Links? They are unmistakable and definite The Independent reported on July 10, 2005 that Al Qaeda may have hired a gang of “white mercenary terrorists� to carry out the London bombings.The Daily Mirror reported on July 16, 2005 that the four bombers may have been “duped� into carrying their bomb-laden backpacks on to the Underground and a bus. There is also intelligence that points to Italian neo-fascist, Pentagon Task Force 121, and Balkan Islamic fundamentalist links to the London bombers. French counter-terrorism official have reported that Balkans or Eastern European-origin military grade explosives were used in the...

In her book "The Hunt: Me and War Criminals," Carla Del Ponte, former chief prosecutor at The Hague, reveals the gruesome details of the hundreds of Serb prisoners whose bodies were stripped of their organs during the Kosovo war. According to her sources, senior figures in the KLA were aware of the scheme, in which hundreds of young Serbs were reportedly taken by truck from Kosovo to northern Albania, where their organs were removed. Miss Del Ponte provides grim details of the reported organ harvesting and of how some prisoners were sewn up after having kidneys removed. Miss Del Ponte...

(UNITED NATIONS) - The United States on Friday defended UN chief Ban Ki-moon's plans to transfer some powers from the UN mission in Kosovo to the European Union despite opposition from Serbia and its ally Russia. US Ambassador to the UN Zalmay Khalilzad told the Security Council that Washington backed Ban's plan to reconfigure the UN mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) by transferring responsibilities in the areas of police, justice and customs to a EU mission. He told Ban that despite objections raised by Serbia and Russia, "You have to act. 1244 gives you that discretion," referring to the Security Council...

The Silesian Autonomy Movement has sent a petition to Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk asking him to allow all regional communities to gain autonomy status. If he does not agree, the Silesians say they are ready to raise the issue of separation, according to Russian newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta. The movement officially declares its support for the autonomy of Silesia. The association was founded in 1991 and is based mainly in the Polish part of Upper Silesia. A similar petition has been sent to the Polish Sejm, the lower house of parliament, which along with the Senate (the upper house) has...

President of Papal Council for Christian Reunification, Cardinal Walter Casper says Vatican has no intention to recognize Kosovo's independence, reports InterFax. "Until this moment, the Wholly Synod has not recognized Kosovo as an independent country, and has no intention to do so" said Casper in an interview published by Magazine "Itogi". In the Interview, the Cardinal explains that Vatican understand why "Russia and the Russian Orthodox Church are worried with Kosovo" and admit that Kosovo is "craddle of the Serbian Orthodox Church". According to the Cardinal, the Wholly Synod understand that "each national minority as a right on social, religios...

The UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, today brushed aside furious Russian protests and downgraded the UN mission in Kosovo to allow the European Union to launch its most ambitious foreign project. Ban announced the "reconfiguration" of the nine-year-old UN mission on the eve of the Kosovo authorities enacting a constitution for an independent state which is fiercely opposed by Russia and Serbia. Russia responded by demanding the sacking of the UN chief in Kosovo, Joachim Ruecker of Germany, accusing him of working to sabotage his own mission. The Russian foreign ministry said Ruecker's conduct was "scandalous obstinacy which should be decisively...

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia demanded disciplinary action against the head of the United Nations mission in Kosovo on Thursday for preparing to hand over powers to a European Union mission that Moscow says is illegal. Russia's foreign ministry made the demand on the same day NATO chiefs met to try and iron out problems over the international security presence in Kosovo, which announced its secession from Serbia this year. Russia opposes the recognition of Kosovo's independence and says the UN mission, which provides policing and other support, cannot handover to an EU mission because the UN Security Council has not...

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) — NATO nations agreed Thursday to broaden their peacekeeping mission in Kosovo to include training for the newly independent nation's security forces. NATO troops will help train Kosovo's troops even though a minority of member nations, led by Spain, have not recognized Kosovo's declaration of independence from Serbia in February. "With this decision, NATO will be able to assist Kosovo in building necessary, democratic security institutions," alliance Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said at the meeting of NATO defense ministers. "This Kosovo security force will be lightly armed, democratic and will focus initially on crisis response...

BELGRADE, June 13 (Reuters) - Serbia on Friday rejected a proposed European Union police mission for Kosovo and accused U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon of overreaching his powers in its former province. Days before Kosovo's constitution comes into effect, Ban put forward a proposal to "reconfigure" the activities of the U.N. Mission in Kosovo, or UNMIK, and allow the EU to pursue a police mission there. "Ban Ki-moon overstepped his powers. The Security Council is the only relevant authority to decide whether the UNMIK mission should be reconfigured," Slobodan Samardzic, Serbia's minister for Kosovo, told reporters. The United Nations has administered...

Father-of-four finds 12-strong colony of illegal immigrants living in his LOFT By Sophie Borland Last updated at 3:13 AM on 13th June 2008Unexpected: Lee Bradley discovered a colony of illegalimmigrants living in the loft of his new house (file picture)A family moved into their new home only to discover 12 illegal immigrants living in the roof. Lee Bradley was inspecting the loft of his rented terraced house when he made the shock discovery. Under the roof, a colony of Kosovan migrants had knocked down the wall between his house and the two adjoining properties to create living space for several...

Iran, Iraq and other hot spots topped discussions between U.S. President George Bush and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi Thursday in Rome. "We did have a wideranging discussion," Bush said during a news conference. "I appreciate very much the fact that Italy is meeting international obligations." Bush noted that U.S. citizens probably didn't realize how many Italian troops were deployed around the world, including 8,700 troops in areas such as Kosovo and Chad. "We talked about Iraq, how Iraq is changing for the better, how people are beginning to realize the blessings of a free and peaceful society," Bush said,...

Appathurai said the training is expected to start soon, and diplomats added that the aim was to have an initial force of 1,200 ready by year's end. Diplomats said the 600 or so Spanish troops serving in Kosovo would not take part in the training. Although Appathurai stressed the planned multiethnic nature of the force, it was uncertain whether members of Kosovo's ethnic Serb minority would participate. Meanwhile, Russia signaled its continued annoyance over Kosovo by calling for the dismissal of the top U.N. official in the new nation over plans for the European Union to replace the current U.N....

The apparently strange alliance and accommodation between Islam and the Left is not strange at all when put in historical perspective. The aggressor and the appeaser are not strange bedfellows. The question is who is fooling who? We read various reports of school administrators accommodating Muslim students by providing scheduled prayer time, meeting facilities, foot washing basins, instructors and similar conveniences or facilities. Having school sponsored “Islamic Festivals” or “Be a Muslim for a Week” events is also fair game. These same administrators adamantly refuse any such accommodations to Christian or Jewish students. Punishing Christian students for bringing a Bible...

Pristina, 6 June (AKI) - An international panel of judges has sentenced a Kosovo Albanian to 40 years in prison for blowing up a Serbian bus that killed 11 people and injured ten others in 2001. Florim Ejupi was charged with planting and detonating explosives under a bridge near the northern Kosovar town of Podujevo. The blast blew up a bus belonging to the Serbian company Nis Express. Ejupi denied the charges and will be able to appeal the sentence before Kosovo's Supreme Court in two weeks. Kosovo, where ethnic Albanians outnumber Serbs by 17 to one, has been under...

Police in Kosovo say they have detained a teenager over his alleged involvement in a gun battle at the home of Kosovo's Prime Minister Hashim Thaci. Stefan Bos reports for VOA from Budapest that the government has condemned the violence as "an act against the rule of law" in the young Balkan state. A Kosovan police officer stands guard in front of the sealed road leading to the residence of Prime Minister Hashim Thaci in Pristina, 07 Jun 2008 Police say they have arrested a 19-year-old ethnic Albanian man who was wounded in a shootout with security guards protecting Kosovo's...

"Stolen Kosovo" Documentary Censored in Czech Republic: Suffering of Kosovo Serbs Cannot be Shown on National TV That there can be no freedom of expression under the dictatorial regimes was confirmed yet again by the state-owned Czech TV, supposedly a "public service" which took part in the financing of the Vaclav Dvorak's documentary "Stolen Kosovo" prior to Czech Government's recognition of the mafia state on Serbian territory, but now, after their FM announced recognition of the fake state, refused to air it. According to the Czech daily Aktualne, the representatives of the state television justify their refusal to show the...

Kosovo Muslims arrest Serbs over t'shirts SERBIANNA June 3, 2008 Brothers Miomir and Milos Stojanovic from Gnjilane have been arrested on the regional road from Gnjilane to Bujanovac for wearing t-shirts saying Kosovo is Serbia, stated official of the Kosovo Ministry Milorad Todorovic. He told the Serbian news agency Beta that two youths were arrested and brought before the municipal prosecutor in Gnjilane. The Islamic judge decided that the brothers, who are Christian, must either pay 250 Euros each or to spend 60 days in jail.

“If Yugoslavia was the laboratory of Communism, then Communism would breathe its last dying breath here in Belgrade. And to judge by what [Slobodan] Milosevic was turning into by early 1989, Communism would exit the world stage revealed for what it truly was: fascism, without fascism's ability to make the trains run on time.” - Robert D. Kaplan “You bombed my country.” These were the nearly first words I heard after clearing passport control on arrival in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, from a taxi driver who flagged me down inside the airport. “Fifteen countries bombed my country.” I didn't...

BRUSSELS, May 28 (Reuters) - NATO troops should not be left to shoulder police tasks in Kosovo, the U.S.-led alliance said on Wednesday as signs grew that a European Union plan to take over police duties there faced months of delay. Kosovo's ethnic Albanian government asked the EU to take over policing from the United Nations when it declared independence from Serbia in February, but Serb ally Russia has so far blocked any formal handover.

U.S. soldiers stationed at Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo may be stunned to find three wooden crosses stripped from the exterior grounds of their chapel in coming weeks – and many never saw it coming. Several high-ranking officers have met behind closed doors to discuss plans for the crosses. They have decided to remove, and perhaps destroy, the Christian symbols located outside Peacekeeper's Chapel in the name of free exercise of religion. Lt. Col. William Jenkins, 35th Infantry Division's Kosovo Force 9 command chaplain, told WND, "The removal of the crosses … is bringing the chapel into line with long-standing regulations...

BRUSSELS, Belgium - European Union defense ministers agreed Monday to keep the bloc's 2,500 peacekeepers in Bosnia, citing concern that tensions in Kosovo could spill over into other parts of the Balkans. "The region is not yet fully stable," said Slovene Defense Minister Karl Erjavec, who chaired the meeting. "It is necessary to continue being present militarily." Some EU nations had hoped that growing stability in Bosnia would allow them to pull the troops out, leaving just a police and civilian mission. However, the failure of Bosnia's ethnically based political parties to agree on a new constitution and the tensions...

BRUSSELS -- The European Union and the United Nations are very worried, but remain unable to agree on how to act in Kosovo after June 15, Beta news agency says. The ethnic Albanian authorities in Priština say that their new constitution will take effect in the province's entire territory, while the EU intends to deploy its EULEX mission there. However, this mission is not based on any UN Security Council decision, while UN SC Resolution 1244, so far the only document regulating international presence in Kosovo, remains in force. At the same time, there has been no decision to withdraw...

Sir -- I am a serving army officer and I have just returned off leave. I read your article on Kosovo with great interest. It was excellent, I really am fed up reading the UN propaganda that is blindly regurgitated by most visiting journalists. While undoubtedly United Nations' Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) has improved the country and the lot of the Kosovar Albanians in particular, as an international organisation it could have done so much better. So well done for telling it as it is! ... The population is as divided as ever, freedom of movement for the K/Serbs is...

PREŠEVO -- Serbian police (MUP) officers have made arrests and seized a large number of weapons and equipment in the country's volatile south. Two ethnic Albanians, identified as Nazmija Hajredini, 58, and Adnan Najredini, 24, both Preševo residents, were arrested. Heavy weapons, military equipment, and the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA, videos and propaganda material were confiscated in their home, MUP has confirmed, according to Beta news agency. A MUP statement issued today in Belgrade adds that the cache included five automatic rifles, two RPGs, 20 mines, ten machine guns, five pistols, a number of hand grenades and more than...

24 May 2008 | 22:42 | FOCUS News Agency Prague. President of the Czech Republic Vaclav Klaus is ‘ashamed’ of the decision of the right-centrist government to acknowledge the independence of Kosovo, AFP reports. The government of PM Mirek Topolanek officially recognized Kosovo on Wednesday, three months after the state declared its independence. As a result, Serbia recalled its ambassador to Prague. ‘It is not a secret and I could not accept the recognition of Ksovo’, Kaus said before the media.

Vice President of Serbian Radical Party, Tomislav Nikolic with a view that there will be war in Europe if Kosovo attempts to join Albania. In an interview for Magazine Spiegel Online, Nikolic says that his view is not to argue, rather to converse with the European Union. To the question what he wished to speak to the EU about, Nikolic answered that the EU can no longer decide without Serbia's consent, reports Serbian paper "Blic". "Why no one for Kosovo did not offer the Cyprus solution? Cyprus is recognized as a country, even though its North section doesn't exist, this...

Serbia is due to host the Eurovision song contest with a tune hailed as a gesture of nationalist defiance over the secession of Kosovo. The camp songfest has long dripped with barely-concealed political intrigue as countries vote for friends and neighbours no matter how awful their efforts. Belgrade's moment in the spotlight comes just three months after Serbia's former province of Kosovo declared independence backed by most of the European Union. Serbia has withdrawn its ambassadors from those countries which recognise Kosovo, and now Jelena Tomasevic, its Eurovision entrant, is to ram home the country's disgust with her song 'Oro'....

Pristina, 21 May (AKI) – Kosovo Albanian journalist Baton Hadziju has been arrested and faces charges for contempt of the United Nations' Hague-based Yugoslav war crimes tribunal after he allegedly identified a secret witness in a trial. Hadziju, until recently the editor of the leading Albanian language daily Koha ditore and currently director of another daily Ekspres, was arrested in Pristina on Tuesday and has been transferred to The Hague (photo), Kosovo police said. Prosecutors at the tribunal allege that Baton Haxhiu, the editor of a newspaper, last year obtained information about a witness with a protected identity and then...

Country Reports on Terrorism 2007 - Kosovo The United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) continued to monitor suspected terrorist activity with the Provisional Institutions of Self-Government (PISG). Officials believed that a few of the more than 400 NGOs operating in Kosovo were involved in suspicious activities, and sought to prevent extremists from using NGOs to gain a foothold in Kosovo. Consequently, municipalities authorized NGO use of public facilities for religious gatherings only if the relevant religious community consented. The Kosovo Police Service (KPS) and UNMIK Police Counterterrorism Units (CTUs) were primarily responsible for Kosovo's counterterrorism efforts, but were small and...