KFOR, Kosovo Police investigate reappearance of ANA
KFOR and the Kosovo police are controlling the entire territory of Kosovo, and organizations such as the Albanian National Army (ANA) are considered illegal, spokesmen of KFOR and the Kosovo Police Service said in Pristina on Wednesday, after media reports on ANA’s activities in northern Kosovo.
(KosovoCompromise Staff) Thursday, November 15, 2007
Kosovo Police Service spokesman Veton Elshani said that the police was running a joint investigation with KFOR into the ANA case.
Elshani also said no ANA actions were expected on November 17, the day of the parliamentary and local elections in Kosovo.
Activities of armed Albanian groups came under the scrutiny of Western intelligence services as well, right after scrimmages in western Macedonia and rumors of renewed influence of radical Islamists on gunmen led by Lirim Jakupi, a.k.a "Commander Nazi".
"We're looking into alleged ties of Jakupi's group and the Wahhabi movement", Western intelligence official told KosovoCompromise.com, adding that Macedonian police seized unexpectedly sophisticated weapons in village of Brodec, raising the concern of possible larger and better organization behind that unit of outlaws.
KFOR spokesman Bertrand Bono said that KFOR had a sufficient number of soldiers to guarantee a peaceful environment in Kosovo, and added that the number of NATO soldiers in Kosovo could increase if necessary.
UNMIK proclaimed ANA a terrorist organization in 2003 after a series of attacks, mostly on the Kosovo Serbs. Members of the organization have on several occasions appeared in the Kosovo media over the past few weeks, announcing they would take over the north of Kosovo, populated predominantly by Serbs.
Serbian Army Chief of Staff General Zdravko Ponos on Wednesday called on his collocutors in the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Military Committee in Brussels to have KFOR take the necessary steps to prevent the activities of extremist groups in Kosovo.
Ponos said that he had urged his collocutors to react to the emergence of banned groups, whose representatives had been appearing in public lately and creating anxiety among Serbs in the province.
Ponos had bilateral meetings in Brussels with the current head of the Military Committee, Canadian General Ray Henault, and the Italian Army chief of staff Admiral Gianpaolo di Paolo.
General Ponos said that his collocutors said they were pleased with the Serbian army's cooperation with KFOR so far, and conveyed the international forces' readiness to secure peace and stability for all Kosovo citizens.
