Albanian terrorist group reappears in Kosovo
The Pristina daily Express on Tuesday published a report from a pledging ceremony attended by 20 new Albanian National Army (ANA) members in the mountains in northern Kosovo, with the Associated Press (AP) reporting on the same day about this organization, proclaimed “terrorist” by the UN in 2003 after a series of terrorist attacks, mostly against the Kosovo Serbs.
(KosovoCompromise Staff) Wednesday, November 14, 2007
The Pristina daily says that the number of new ANA members is growing and that, according to its collocutors, "ANA has 12,000 members, including intellectuals, students, teachers, and peasants."
The members of ANA claim they are dissatisfied with the current situation and the Kosovo politicians, the daily added.
The terrorist group has recently threatened to take control of northern Kosovo, populated predominantly by Serbs. The former members of the organization, led by Lirim Jakupi, a.k.a. "Commander Nazi", have recently provoked clashes with the Macedonian police, which left eight Albanian extremists dead. The clashes took place in northwestern Macedonia, close to Kosovo.
The leaders of the Serb National Council of Kosovo and Metohia Milan Ivanovic and Nebojsa Jovic have said that the situation in Kosovo was tense, but that there was no cause for fear. They presented a document which, as they claimed, proved ANA was preparing an attack on the Serbian part of Kosovska Mitrovica.
"There will be many threats, like in the past few years. The intimidation campaign has begun, but we are ready to respond to threats adequately," Jovic said, adding that he would wait for KFOR and UNMIK to do their job in case of an outburst of violence, and if they failed, the Serbs would group and "together with them defend ourselves from any kind of violence."
After the reappearance of ANA members in the public, Serbian Defense Minister Dragan Sutanovac said that the Serbian security forces would not allow terrorism from Kosovo or Macedonia to spill over into southern Serbia. "Our reaction will be swift," Sutanovac said.
