British army sends 600 troops to Kosovo
Great Britain will send some 600 additional troops to volatile Kosovo to help maintaining public order following Pristina’s decision to unilaterally declare independence from Serbia, British Defense Minister Des Brown said Tuesday.
(KosovoCompromise Staff) Wednesday, April 30, 2008
London was the first capital to respond to NATO's request for extra troops in Kosovo, and the battalion is scheduled to stay in the province for a month-long mission starting late May-early June.
Brown's announcement came following NATO's assessment that the security situation in Kosovo remains volatile with sporadic violent incidents, including the mid-March clash between Serb protesters and United Nations police in northern part of province, which resulted with one Ukrainian policeman killed, and some 150 people injured.
"The security situation has remained tense and there have been some sporadic incidents of violence," British defense minister said in a written statement.
Fresh British unit has been trained for riot control, which could come in handy for NATO commanders confronting periodical tides of dissatisfaction on both sides involved in the Kosovo crisis.
However, the deployment of riot control troops could overstretch the overall capabilities of the British army, mainly due to the fact that this unit had just returned from mission in southern Iraq, which came after consecutive deployments in Bosnia, Iraq again, Sierra Leone, and Kosovo in 2005.
