M. Bozinovich Column on Serbianna.com

While the West, relieved to see no marauding Albanian mobs, is praising Kosovo's "democratic maturity", the province is seeing an increasing rise in violent incidents that fail to make any big news.

As recently as August 6, the UNMIK international officials and police representatives received threatening letters by the "Albanian National Army", ANA. According to BBC, "The main headquarters of the Albanian National Army has ordered UNMIK, the UNMIK police and other Albanian civil structures to quit their jobs as soon as possible and that those Albanians who obtain information from the Serbian counterintelligence service should also leave Kosova" stressing that the letter was signed by certain Gazmend Berisha and the message was placed on UNMIK vehicles. The letter also issued a violent threat to UN: "The ANA main command once again warns UNMIK, the UN police and OSCE to leave Kosovo because if they do not, UNMIK and the UN police will be attacked" says the letter.

In turn, UNMIK spokesperson Neeraj Singh duly rejected that this ever happened saying to the Albanian language paper Koha Ditore that "We do not have any information about this and we have not received any letters."

Although not the first time that the UNMIK rejects facts that run contrary to their attempt to portray Kosovo as a pristine, civilized province, Albanian terror groups made it rather clear on several other occassions that the UN, along with the ethnic Serbs, are a target. On July 2, for example, three bombs were detonated almost simultaneously in front of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) building, near the parliament and at the parking lot of the United Nations headquarters. The next day, an explosion damaged offices of the Ministry for Returns and the Serbian Democratic Party in the northern Kosovo town of Zubin Potok.

The latest bombing of Zubin Potok maintains the prevailing Albanian trend of waging a terror war on the UN and Kosovo Serbs: one grenade went off, destroying a police car and damaging four other UN vehicles, said Larry Miller, the UN police spokesman.

As Kosovo's UN police gathers statistics on violence, and the UN officials claim to see no subliminal political nor strategic overtones to them other then criminal incidents, Albanian armed men have formed an acronym soup of terror groups that will wage war on anyone deemed an obstacle to the government that the UN has installed in this Serbian province.

So, KPC, which is a reformed KLA and is led by a terrorist Agim Ceku, wants UNMIK to recognize it as an army of Kosovo. When the UN governor Soren Jessen-Petersen refused Ceku's request, 3 bombs were detonated in Pristina and KPC is blaming ANA while LKCK blames UNMIK for security failures. In Albanian, however, KLA's spelling is UCK while ANA's is AKSH... an acronym soup deliberately designed for a westerner to swim in it and waste time trying to find a "good guy".

Soren Jessen-Petersen hasn't yet capitulated to the idea of an official Kosovo army, but when it comes to running Kosovo, the dhimmi behavior of the UN reeks ever since 1999, as Albanians are using violence to extract more attributes from the UN that belong to a sovereign state. Violence is an intricate component of dhimmitude because it is an incentive to extract more from non-Muslims in exchange for sparing their lives. Afterall, Kosovo is but 5% all Islamic.

One can laugh how UN police may have no information on terror bombings but for most of these UN policemen being a "dougnut-shop cop" is a way of securing their lives. Explains Christopher Deliso: "All internationals in Kosovo are sitting ducks; they live in the apartments, frequent the restaurants, stay in the hotels, and shop in the stores owned by locals. At any given moment, any of them, from the lowliest secretary to the highest UN representative, can be killed."

The scenario of killing the highest UN representative in Kosovo was demonstrated in mid March this year. The day after Iran's successful talks with Croatia a bomb blasted targeting Kosovo's President Ibrahim Rugova's convoy, an assassination attempt that some see Iranian fingerprints in it because of certain similarities with an assassination of Hariri.

Of course, some in the West were quick to smear public lipstick on the assassination by claiming that along with ethnic Serbs, there, an Albanian was attacked in Kosovo, presumably proving that even Kosovo violence is multiethnic.

Madeleine Albright (R) and leader of the Kosovo Democratic Party Hashim Thaqi are seen at Pristina airport on July 4, 2005. Albright is an owner of an internet business interest in Kosovo which she got after bombing Serbia.

However, Pristina based paper Kosova Sot which has close ties with Hasim Taqi, once terror now a political leader, revealed the intentions to use the assassination attempt to extract something from the lame UNMIK. Writes Sot: "It is crystal clear now that even though we have Kfor and UNMIK here, they are not a guarantee for the security of our people... Kosova does not have an intelligence service, it does not have a ministry of order, and has no security powers. They are all in UNMIK's hands."

While a UN governor in Bosnia is quick to politically punish and/or belittle politicians for activities that may be legal but not to his desires, the Kosovo UN governor is quick to remind that they are not in Bosnia and that punishment for illegal activity is out of question. "As for the political punitive measures, I have no comment," recently stated UNMIK spokesperson Remi Dourlot. One then wonders whether silence is a reward for illegal behavior?

The reason why UN hasn't yet been bombed for failing to legalize outlaw Albanian spy agencies in Kosovo is perhaps twofold.

Second, British have written up a "Kosovo Internal Security Sector Review" (ISSR) envisioning a development of an internal security organization in Kosovo. Says UN governor Jessen-Petersen: "[t]he process is essentially developmental - it will help Kosovars develop security policymaking and management skills needed for the future. Finally, the review will produce a plan for the development of the security sector, so it is not an end in itself but the first phase of a longer process which will ensure the future safety and security of all."

According to a Belgrade based military analyst Zoran Dragisic, Kosovo Albanian desire to assert themselves "as a partner to the international intelligence services in the fight against terrorism and organized crime, is the desire to conceal the things that happened on that territory" specifically citing the presence of the al-Qaeda network that helped Kosovo Albanians in their war on Serbs and is still active in Kosovo such as the Abu Bekir Sadik group, active in northern Kosovo around the city of Kosovska Mitrovica.

The financial muscle behind this new assertiveness may be the Economic Fiscal Council that was recently transferred over by the UN to the Kosovo Albanians who, quickly, allocated 20 million Euros of which only 5 million is designated for "government priorities" while the other 15 million will be spent on undisclosed activities within the next 6 months. According to Tomislav Kresovic, a political analyst for the Center for Antiterrorism and World Peace, Kosovo Albanian government is prepared to set aside huge amounts of money for its secret service, which would work through Kosovo's cultural-information centers that exist in more than 20 countries and be the nucleus of a diplomatic-intelligence and journalist-correspondent network.

In addition to the money, Albanian desire to conceal "things" in Kosovo may also have a powerful ally - Britain.

In a July 29 edition of FOX News Channel's Day Side, former Justice Department prosecutor and terror expert John Loftus revealed that the so called mastermind of the 7/7 London Bombings, Haroon Rashid Aswat, was a British Intelligence Asset recruited as Al-Muhajiroun by MI6 to fight in Kosovo. Says Loftus: "We arrested the New York branch of Al-Muhajiroun two years ago. We found the subway bombers with the plans to blow up two different subway stations in New York City. The rest of the group is under surveillance. But the US was used by Al-Muhajiroun for training of people to send to Kosovo. What ties all these cells together was, back in the late 1990s, the leaders all worked for British intelligence in Kosovo. Believe it or not, British intelligence actually hired some Al-Qaeda guys to help defend the Muslim rights in Albania and in Kosovo."

Kosovo's 5 NATO sectors. Drenica is located underneath the British flag.

It is no coincidence then that British forcefully demanded in 1999 that, once Serb forces leave, their troops occupy the central Kosovo sector that includes Drenica, the epicenter of Albanian insurgency and a likely meeting point with the al-Qaeda. It remains to be seen whether British desire to endow Kosovo with an intelligence service of its own is motivated by recent Kosovo links to the London bombings or to reward Kosovo Albanians for concealing Tony Blair's dirty laundary in the Balkans.

On June 21, for example, officials and experts from Bosnia, Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia and Albania attended a CIA sponsored conference focused on the Project for Assessing the Threats and Challenges to the Regional Security of Western Balkans held in Skopje. It was reported that CIA Director Peter Goss secretly visited Albania immediately after the conference, as well as Bosnia, where, according to an analyst, he personally delivered 900 names of suspected Jihadists based in Bosnia.

Albania has thus dully conducted an extensive series of terror-focused measures: (July 16) tightens security at border point with Greece; (July 19) steps up cooperation against terrorism and crime with Montenegro and strengthens anti-terrorist checks on foreigners; (July 20) Reinforce antiterror measures at Durres Port; (July 22) approaches Macedonia to cooperate in a fight against terrorism; (July 25) tightens border controls for citizens from Islamic countries; (August 4) hosts Adriatic Charter military exercise and receives $8 million from US "in recognition of its role in international peacekeeping and the global war on terror".

Bosnia's chief Ashdown, meanwhile, is torn between forcing Serbs to share their intelligence with the Muslims that are hosts to al-Qaeda militants or sitting by as the Bosnian Serb Republic is increasingly received with sympathy by Washington.

Although Serbia has recently formed yet another intelligence outfit, a third within the Serbian Foreign Ministry and seventh within the Serbia-Montenegro union, it is unclear who in the West desires to deal with them. Western track record in dealing with Serbian intelligence is one of belittling it as the case of Dragomir Andan, chief of intelligence in the Serb Republic in Bosnia, shows: The European Union Police Mission issued a statement that they are "disappointed and concerned" about his claim that there is evidence of terrorist groups in Bosnia demanding he retract them and publicly apologize. Under pressure to apologize for telling the truth, Andan did.

On the other hand, NATO, and in particular the US is willing to deal with the Serbian military with which it held joint military exercises and has recently signed a deal.

At the joint Serbian-American military exercise. Serbian General Ninoslav Krstic (left) says that the joint Serbian-US exercises were "more then symbolism". On the right, Colonel Briedfeld was asked by Serbian weekly Ekonomist on a possibility of joint excercises in Kosovo, on which Colonel Briedfeld (right) allegedly said that "We'll talk about it; we'll continue talks."

On June 30, KFOR met with the top Serbian military brass - interestingly enough - in Kosovo's capital, Pristina where the final details on a joint US-Serbian military exercises to be held one week later were probably ironed out. Indeed, on July 7 Serbian and American troops staged joint exercises at a strategic Oslarski rit located few miles from Kosovo border and the vital Belgrade-Salonica highway. According to the US Colonel Clay Briedfeld, deputy commander of maneuvers in the Multinational Brigade East, the July 7 exercises between the Serbian Joint Security Forces (JSF) and the US army representing NATO, was "to check the quality of procedures already in place between Kfor and JSF in this matter." The military matter at issue is noted in the title of these military games: "Medical treatment and helicopter evacuation of injured Kfor members in the Ground Safety Zone".

Ten days later, Serbia signed an agreement with NATO giving them unimpeded transit throughout Serbia, the point similar as in the 1999 Rambouillet's infamous Appendix B that was rejected by Milosevic and subsequently triggered American war on Serbia.

"The news came as a shock to the Serbian public, still resentful over NATO's aggression more than six years ago." noted Nebojsa Malic illustrating a prevalent belief among many Serbian nationalists who axiomatically view any military involvement with the US as bad business.

Still, another shock to the Serbian public followed when the Serbian media, finally, found out that the Ohio National Guard has been paired up with the Serbian military through a State Partnership Program that links US states with partner countries for the purpose of supporting the security cooperation objectives.

Belgrade based NIN accentuated the extent to which the Serbian media is itself underinformed and relies on tautologies and haphazard correlation: "NIN sources say that the choice fell on Ohio out of two reasons. First is that the National Guard capacities [Washington] administration wants to employ in a foreign relations functions. Second is the structure of [Ohio's] population - Serbs there represent a significant minority."

Little over a year ago (July 22, 2004), however, the web site of the Serbian military reported of the Ohio-Serbia pairing: "[Serbian President] Boris Tadic has met the US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in the Pentagon. Following their meeting Mr Tadic said that the military cooperation of SCG and the US 'is our national interest', as well as that 'currently we have a lot of mutual programmes, like the programme for cooperation in the field of defence and the programme between State of Ohio's National Guard and the Serbian and Montenegrin Armed Forces (SMAF).'"

That the Ohio-Serbia deal was struck days before Rumsfeld-Tadic meeting is indicated by Mira R. Ricardel's Testimony to the Senate's Foreign Relations Committee given July 14, 2004: "Mr. Chairman, I am also pleased to announce the U.S. and the Government of Serbia and Montenegro have agreed to establish a State Partnership Program with the National Guard. The Ohio National Guard has kindly offered to serve as SaM armed forces’ state partner. This is an important program that provides countries ongoing close links to the U.S. military in support of defense reform and transformation objectives."

It is not outright clear whether US is silently "grooming" Serbia for its role in the "New" Europe although, according to the New Europe Review web site, which is ran by CIA intelligence officers that run outfits like Voice of America, this may be happening. What this US government web site promotes is congruent with the prevailing Washington thinking nicely articulated by John C. Hulsman and Nile Gardiner in the Heritage Foundation:

"The Bush Administration should adopt a purely interest-based position regarding the future direction of Europe, emphasizing that U.S. goals in Europe include preserving the NATO alliance, maintaining the Anglo-U.S. special relationship, and supporting a multi-speed Europe based on the principle of each individual state having greater choice about its level of integration with Brussels."

The degree of integration with the Brussels comes as a response to the French-Belgian-German core that seeks to centralize European Union's foreign policy. Jacques Chirac's finger waving at the Eastern Europeans threatening them with a EU membership veto is the poster case of the rampant anti-Americanism propagated by this core.

The "New" Europe as of 2000. Serbia was added and Bosnia paired with Maryland National Guard. Most are pro-growth, low and flat tax states. Click to enlage

Seeking flexibility as well as new allies, US is engaged in packing the EU and NATO with friendly states it calls "New Europe" that will, as a majority, influence, change and/or decentralize EU's foreign policy. A pro-American allegiance of these states has been acquired in various ways: by courting them during communism, by granting them independence, and by instituting "rainbow" revolutions where the Serbia-based group Otpor is used to make them supposedly popular.

- US gains a new client state Kosovo plus Bosnia, a net US gain of 2. It looses 7: Serbia, Macedonia, Romania, Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, as all of them have separatist problems, plus Belarus as a vassal of Russia. That these 7 states will go anti-US like a domino in case of Kosovo's independence was recently alluded by Romania issuing a firm and an unequivocal opposition to Kosovo's independence. The consequence of Kosovo's recognition therefore is decisively anti-American. Here's the arithmetic:

anti-American EU states: 15 - 1 (UK) + 7 (Serbia, Macedonia, Romania, Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, Belarus) = 21
pro-American states: 17 + 1 (UK) - 7 + 2 (Kosovo, Bosnia) = 13

- US keeps the 17 it already counts on, and gains Serbia and Bosnia, for total of 19 plus UK gives US 20 pro-American EU states while the existing 14 remain anti-American.

Decisively advantageous to America, the second case will also require American assurances that existential threat to the Kosovo Albanians is removed, maintanance of the self government and a "teaching" process for Belgrade on how to maximize the already built autonomy structure within Kosovo that goes to great lengths to appease the Albanians and defuse the central authority.

Which case will Washington endorse is still anyone's guess, but in either case Albanian reaction will be more violence, within Kosovo and in Macedonia. Joint exercises with Serbia and a subsequent deal to use Serbia as an evacuation route out of Kosovo is a clear signal that NATO may not be the willing party to quell the upcoming Albanian violence likely to start by spring of 2006.