http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8677097.stm
Within the period of two weeks there have been two serious incidents involving the domestic security forces of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) and ethnic Albanians that are most probably affiliated with the Kosovo-based Kosovo Liberation Army – KLA – UCK and its FYROM-based subsidiary National Liberation Army or NLA branch. As the BBC reports today, May 12, 2010, FYROM police intercepted a van near the FYROM-Kosovo border that was carrying a large amount of weapons and explosives. The van’s occupants opened fire and in the ensuing firefight all four (4) of the van’s occupants were killed. According to FYROM police, all of those killed were dressed in military fatigues. The same BCC article also provides a belated and very summary description of what happened two weeks ago. According to Greek press information FYROM police raided a location near the town or village of Blace (or Blatche) that is close to the FYROM-Kosovo border. There was a shootout between the FYROM police force and about twelve (12) ethnic Albanian gunmen who were guarding a huge quantity of weapons, ammunition, and explosives. Although the gunmen evaded capture (one of them was injured in the firefight), the FYROM police seized the stored weapons. As the BBC reports, these included three (3) heavy anti-aircraft machine guns, mortars, rocket propelled grenades (RPGs), and the usual menagerie of Kalashnikov automatic assault rifles, mines, explosives and ammunition. These quantities and types of heavy infantry weapons are not normally used for recreational hunting or for the more nefarious criminal activities of drug smuggling. The internal economic situation in Kosovo is at an impasse despite the huge amounts of foreign economic assistance that has been provided and squandered since the 1999 Kosovo crisis. One is left to wonder whether the UCK-KLA political leadership in Kosovo is cooking up some other ethnic Albanian irredentist military campaign in the Balkans in order to divert attention from its own internal political and economic mismanagement of Kosovo’s affairs. Since the Presevo Valley in Serbia proper is more of a “hard target” because of Serbia’s new political position within Europe and the fact that Serb border defenses with Kosovo have been quietly reinforced and modernized (a new and modern Serb military base has been built in the region), FYROM offers a much “easier” target. So much for the “celebrated” 2001 Lake Ochrid Accords that, very much supposedly, “disarmed” the KLA-UCK-NLA ethnic Albanian factions within FYROM under NATO-EU “supervision.” Labros E. Pilalis
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