Kosovo blast injures five government officials
A bomb blast injured five Kosovo government officials in southern town of Suva Reka on Monday prompting the province’s new cabinet led by former rebel leader turned politician Hashim Thaci to immediately condemn the attack, saying that “such criminal acts were totally unacceptable” and “perpetuators must face justice.”
(KosovoCompromise Staff) Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Kosovo police and international peacekeepers, including the bomb-squad, were immediately dispatched to the scene, but no additional details, possible motives nor identity of victims have been made public so far,
However, the government vehicle allegedly blew up in the centre of Suva Reka after unknown assailants activated a hand grenade taped underneath a car causing a rather large blast which injured the driver and four officials of province's Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare.
The nature of their injuries, meanwhile, remained officially unknown, but Kosovo media described the wounds of four people as "serious."
Following the last week's power-sharing deal between two main Kosovo Albanian parties, the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare has been allocated to a representative of local Serbs, Nenad Rasic.
Kosovo has been shaken by a series of unsolved bomb-attacks ever since a deployment of the UN mission in 1999, as local extremists used this tool against both their political rivals and local Serbs.
In the worst such an attack, in February 2001 a dozen Serbs were killed and at least 30 wounded when unidentified perpetuators used some 200 kilos of explosive to blow up the bus near the northern town of Podujevo,
