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PRISTINA, Serbia and Montenegro, 18 October 2005 - NATO acknowledged on Tuesday the presence of an armed group in western Kosovo stopping and searching cars at night but dismissed reports of a new rebel army in the province.
The U.N. mission in charge of Serbia's disputed province has told staff to avoid travelling at night in U.N.-marked cars in the western Decani region after recent media reports of checkpoints manned by armed, masked men.
But an official from the 17,100-strong NATO-led peace force stationed there said the men were little more than bandits stealing from passing cars.
"These are criminals. They are not organised as far as we know and we don't recognise them as an organisation," he told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
"We take it seriously, but as far as we are concerned these are criminals ... who are doing it for their own business."
Calling itself "The Army for the Independence of Kosovo", local newspapers say the group had threatened U.N. officials and was demanding immediate recognition of independence for the majority Albanian province.
U.N. facilities and parked U.N. cars have become the targets of sporadic bomb attacks over the past six months, blamed on extremists trying to warn against delaying talks on Kosovo's future, expected to begin in November.
Illegal checkpoints and ominous communiques were the early hallmarks of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which emerged in 1998 to launch a guerrilla war against Serb forces.
An 11-week NATO bombing campaign in 1999 drove out forces under former Serb strongman Slobodan Milosevic, accused of killing 10,000 Albanian civilians as they fought the KLA.
Under U.N. control since, the 90 percent ethnic Albanian majority is impatient for independence, something Serbia says is impossible.
The U.N. Security Council is expected to endorse the start of "final status" talks at a session on Oct. 24. Diplomats say Western powers will steer them towards a form of "conditional independence" under continued international supervision. Source: AlertNet news |
