Kosova Crisis Center
link to alb-net
KLA Progress Reports
- SAS teams move in to help KLA 'rise from the ashes' (Telegraph)
- KLA mountain men take fight back to Serbs (Telegraph)
- KLA recruits leave London
- 80 SAS men in Kosova to target death squads
- Song in the mists that drove the enemy away
- Rebel forces begin to hit back at Serbs
- Young men flock to join KLA fighters
- Fighting between KLA and Serbian forces in Qafa e Hajlės (KP)
- Fierce fighting in Malėsia e Gallapit
By Olga Craig in Macedonia
INSIDE the dimly lit tent, Gel Brugaj cowers in a corner, too fearful to come near the ragged door flap he has sealed with masking tape.
His few possessions - water bottles and some blankets - are bundled behind the flap in a pathetic attempt to secure it. Outside, his brother and some men from neighbouring tents stand guard, anxiously scanning the surroundings. At the sight of a Macedonian guard they avert their gaze, anxious not to draw his attention.
For the past two days, Gel has not ventured outside. His tent is dank and sour. His friends queue for his food and water and discreetly pass a urine bottle inside when he calls.
It is only after much pleading and many reassurances that he will let us inside. As the bright sunshine filters in and he comes closer to the light, his face is seen to be discoloured, as though painted in garish cosmetics. His nose and cheeks are bright purple, fading to yellow where his bruising has begun to fade.
A jagged row of blue stitches criss-crosses his face, from his forehead down his nose. He turns his head, painfully, pointing to more stitches around the side and across his ear. Both sets are encrusted with blood.
"Don't let them see me; they will kidnap me if they know I have spoken out. They will shoot me," he pleads. "Who will miss one refugee? Who will know what happened to me?"
Gel has been badly beaten by the Macedonian guards who control the Brazda refugee camp on the outskirts of Skopje. He, like thousands of Kosovar refugees, is terrified by the guards, who threaten them, steal their food and menace their womenfolk.
This weekend the news that the British Nato troops at the camp, whom they consider their protectors, are scaling down their presence has left the refugees terrified.
When the Royal Engineers set up the camps, 200 soldiers were stationed there: this weekend, as they begin to hand over its management to aid agencies, there are fewer than 30. The British troops admit they fear for the refugees' safety.
Gel's crime was to intervene when he saw three guards harass two children. The men snatched the children's food and began pushing them when they cried. The guards grew angry when Gel, who was separated from his own children at the border at Blace, asked them to leave the children alone. One beat him over the head with the butt of an AK-47 while the others bludgeoned him with truncheons. They followed when he scrambled away, beating him unconscious.
"We were all afraid of them," he says. "Now I am terrified. At Blace they were more brutal than the Serbs who drove us from our homes. At night they light bonfires and get drunk. They menace our women; some nights we have to guard the tents where women are alone. During the day they swig vodka. It makes them unpredictable, easily angered."
Gel's injuries were treated by Dr Alkan Michael at an Israeli field hospital. Concussed and dazed, Gel was kept two days for observation. "I have treated several people who were beaten by guards," Dr Michael says, "but many are too frightened to come forward."
Near the camp perimeter, soldiers from the British Army civil affairs group, aware of the brutality that goes on when they are not around, keep a watchful eye on the Macedonian guards by the gate. Each time the guards' anger boils over, the British intervene.
"For many of the refugees, we are the first friendly faces they have seen in uniform," says Lt Col Alan Edwards. "They feel safe with us around." Another soldier, playing football with the children, says he feared that the guards' threatening behaviour would spill into brutality when Nato leaves. "When these people first saw us they were yelling: 'Don't kill us.' They were terrified of uniforms. Now they know we are friends, but they cower in fear from the Macedonians."
Lt Col Edwards acknowledges that the aid agencies who will take over the running of the camps have improved. However, he is concerned that they will not be able to cope. "There is a lot of rivalry among the agencies, a lot of egos," he says. "Some need to be reminded that the welfare of these people is their first concern."
Serbs leave legacy of death
by mining schools and farms
By David Harrison in Macedonia
SERBIAN troops are laying thousands of deadly landmines in towns and villages in Kosova to
prevent refugees from returning to their homes, making the region a potential killing zone
for decades to come.
The anti-personnel mines are being put down in fields, schools and even in individual
houses, according to high-level Nato sources and reports from Kosovar refugees arriving in
Albania and Macedonia.
The Serb policy has echoes of the wars in Bosnia and Mozambique where many unsuspecting
refugees suffered horrendous injuries when they went back to homes they had been forced to
leave during the conflict.
Doctors in Albania and Macedonia have already treated victims, including children, of mine
explosions in Kosova. "We have had cases of refugees with wounds caused by shrapnel
from landmines," said a spokeswoman for the United Nations High Commission for
Refugees.
Serbian soldiers are also laying anti-personnel and anti-tank mines along Kosova's borders
with Albania, Montenegro and Macedonia in preparation for a ground war. One 23-year-old
woman who crossed the border into Macedonia on Thursday said she had watched Serbian
soldiers planting mines in her school at Ferizaj, 25 miles from Pristina.
"The soldiers came to my village and I hid in a woodshed," Albona Saliu said at
the Brazda refugee camp yesterday. "I saw them planting mines in the school and in
the houses. The soldiers found me the next day and forced me on to a train to the
border."
Rrushi Ricica, 49, an ethnic Albanian who was turned back from the Macedonian border and
forced to return to her home in Pristina, said the Serb soldiers had warned her to
"keep to the main roads to avoid the mines. As I drove back to Pristina I could see
them laying mines along the tracks and in the fields."
Other refugees said they had fled into Kosova's mountain forests to avoid mines after they
had seen Serbian troops laying mines on roads around their villages.
"We saw them planting mines in the fields near our homes," said Shefket
Maurtezani, 63, who was forced to abandon his home five miles from the Macedonian border
when the Serbs opened fire in the village.
Ethnic Albanian refugees arriving in Albania last week said the Serbs were forcing Kosova
Albanians, who had been taken prisoner, to plant mines along the border.
Nato's 14,000-strong force in Macedonia includes British combat engineers and bomb
disposal engineers ready to deal with the mines along the border in the event of a peace
agreement or a ground war.
"I think we are going to be very busy whatever happens," said Captain Verity
Orrell-Jones, the Royal Engineers bomb disposal officer. "To put mines in people's
homes or fields is a despicable thing to do."
The captain said it would be "an enormous task" to find and explode all the
mines laid by the Serbs. "Our aim will be to check every area before the refugees are
allowed to return or before our ground troops are allowed in.If the refugees come back in
their tens of thousands before we get there we could end up with a lot of people killed or
suffering terrible injuries."
The mines used by the Serbs include small anti-personnel devices. They are circular - the
size and shape of a tin of shoe polish - or rectangular and about the size of a Filofax,
and can kill or seriously injure anybody who steps on them.
More lethal are the PMR-2 and PMR-3 "stake mines", so-called because they are
placed on a stake above the ground and are triggered by a trip-wire. They can kill anybody
within 20 metres and can seriously injure within a radius of 75 metres.
But the most lethal anti-personnel mine is the PROM-1, a sophisticated jumping device that
contains two charges, the first to blow the mine a metre into the air and the second which
explodes over a wider radius than even the PMR mines.
The International Red Cross said it deplored the use of landmines in Kosova or anywhere
else: "All over the world we have seen the appalling effects of these lethal
weapons."
The Serbs have used more than 60 types of landmines in recent years, according to the UN.
A Defence Ministry spokesman in London said: "Most of the mines are low-tech but are
no less lethal than more sophisticated systems. Recent experience world-wide has shown
that such 'dumb' mines - most of them without warning signs - will cause a significant
humanitarian problem for many years to come."
Last month 134 countries signed the Ottawa anti-landmine treaty outlawing anti-personnel
mines but the main producers, including Russia, China, the US and North Korea, did not
sign.
Yugoslavia, one of the larger manufacturers among the 25 countries that still make mines,
did sign the accord but the Serbs continued to mine the Kosova border, initially to stem
the flow of arms from Albania to the Kosova Liberation Army.
Landmines remain an attractive weapon for some countries partly because they are so cheap,
costing as little as £2 each. "They are a very cost-effective way of doing a lot of
damage," said a Nato spokesman. "That will appeal to President Milosevic because
his resources are being stretched by our air strikes and he seems determined to kill and
maim refugees if they return to their homes."
Inside the province of death and
decay
By Michael Williams
AFTER three weeks of Nato bombing, Kosova is an empty province. Many of the villages are
uninhabited - the people have gone into hiding or left to find safety elsewhere. While
hundreds of thousands found squalid sanctuary in Albania and Macedonia, some went up into
the hills of Kosova. Others have gone to their graves. Kosova looks and feels and smells
like a place where the gravediggers have been busy.
In a hamlet of, say, 20 homes, some have been put to the torch while others remain whole -
the language of those who once lived there, their religion, their names, their heritage,
will have decided their fate. Along the road, to the left and right, the houses burn.
Others bear distinctive scars from artillery or mortar rounds. The roofs have been punched
in, and black soot stains the empty windows. Some homes have collapsed in on themselves; a
few have been blown up with dynamite perhaps or by the technique developed in Bosnia: a
candle is lit in an upper room and the gas taps downstairs are opened. Half an hour later
the house is gone and the displaced refugee has nothing to return to.
The scenes are repeated over and over again on the journey through this terrified and
terrifying province. At every bridge that remains intact, a pile of tyres has been set
alight. In the Second World War, the British did the same to persuade the Luftwaffe that
the target had already been destroyed.
Every few miles another fuel dump or factory or military base has been burnt and shattered
by Nato's bombs. At night the blackout is complete and the Yugoslav security forces sleep
in the houses of those Albanians who have been forced out. Requisitioned civilian cars
carry armed men through the streets on unknown missions. Every few miles a police and army
checkpoint brings you to a halt and cows and pigs run free along the roads. Those who
tended them are no longer here.
Kosova now looks like Bosnia did at the height of that filthy, ethnic war. The province is
empty and fearful and smoke rises from every point of the compass. Nato jets can be seen
high in the sky and the sound of explosions shakes the air. While the alliance attempts to
destroy the Yugoslav security machine from thousands of feet in the air, the soldiers and
the special police find targets at ground level.
At the hospital in the southern town of Prizren, six corpses were displayed for our
inspection. "Victims," we were told, "of Nato's criminal aggression."
They were lined up on the mortuary floor. A man whose head was largely gone. A child,
perhaps three or four years old, lying next to her mother.
To be sure that we could see that women were among the dead, the shrouds had been pulled
down to expose their breasts. Terrible wounds, showing how soft and wet and fragile the
human body is. I didn't look too closely and left quickly, eager for a breath of air not
tainted by the smell of decay.
The authorities wanted us to see the grotesque tableau - that was the purpose of the
military mystery tour. At the morgue and at the roadside - where Nato is alleged to have
attacked a column of refugees - the dead were waiting for us to witness their silent
testimony.
Two coaches passed us while we looked at the bodies and body parts by the side of the road
that links Prizren and Djakovica. The curtains were drawn but I could see several women
peering out.
Dirty-faced children gazed through the dusty glass. I don't know who they were, where they
were from or where they were going. Remembering the confused and frightened looks on their
faces, I wonder now if even they knew what lay ahead.
Earlier in the day, near the Macedonian border, we were passed by several other buses
heading towards the fringes of Kosova. Each was filled with people, mainly women, children
and the elderly and each had a few soldiers on board. They were heading eastwards. We saw
them later, returning empty to the heart of Kosova.
We drove up beyond the snowline, through the high mountain passes close by the border with
Macedonia, then down to the warm plain where Kosova meets Albania. According to our
military escorts, Nato was to blame for the tortuous route into the province. "Bomb
damage ahead," they said. "The road is too dangerous. Maybe Nato will attack us.
Or the Albanian terrorists."
Perhaps. But the suspicion lingers that, somewhere on the road ahead, were sights not
meant for our eyes.
Michael Williams is Foreign Affairs Correspondent for Radio 4's Today programme.
10 relatives who stayed behind were
massacred (Irish Times)
By Oonagh Smyth in Tirana
In the evening of March 25th, as Serb tanks began encircling the village of Celina in the
Rahovec district of Kosova, Agim and Florim Dina had a short, heated argument with their
cousins and uncles. Believing that the Serb army wanted to kill only Kosovan men, they
tried to persuade their relatives to leave their families behind and get out of the
village. Despite the pain of the decision, Agim and Florim ran from Celina and made it to
Nagaves, a village roughly 4 km away. The rushed decision saved their lives. Within hours,
Selver (68), Shaqir (65), Rramen (51), Hamez (38), Skender (31), Dritan (23), Xhaferr
(27), Hida (72), Hisa (70) and an old woman, Xhemila (97) were all murdered by what the
women eyewitnesses recognised as "Arkan's band". Agim and Florim have also kept
a list of the names of 36 other villagers they knew, who died over the two days when
Celina was burnt to the ground. Agim says, holding out the list: "This is all we
could remember, but there were many others."
Agim and Florim's mother, Sevije, described what happened: "We all went down into the
basement at about four in the morning. There were about 30 of us. We stayed there until 3
p.m. that day until Serbs arrived and ordered us all out of the basement. They were
wearing strips of red and white sheets as arm bands and had black paint on their faces.
They separated out the men and the women and told women to go into the mountains. Then
they took the strips of sheets and put them on the men as blindfolds and sent them back
into the basement. We were so scared we couldn't breathe but we had to go. As we were
leaving we could hear shots." The following night, Agim and Florim returned to the
forest near Celina and heard that their wives and children were safe and hiding in the
mountains. Before joining them they returned to the village to see what had happened.
Florim found his murdered relatives: "They had been shot in the head and stomach. But
they put them sitting up against the wall."
Xhaffer, a paraplegic whom the family couldn't get into the basement, died in a
neighbouring house which was burnt to the ground.
Albanians in Macedonia Open Homes
By William Booth Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, April 19, 1999; Page A1
MALINA MAALA, Macedonia, April 18 – Until Saturday this village had a population of
600 ethnic Albanians. Now there are 3,600.
They came from Kosova, all 3,000 newcomers, in a long miserable march, pushed along by
fear of roving paramilitary gangs and rumors of men being led to a village square, beaten
in the face and then shot. They came from their hamlets in the southern Kosova region of
Gnjilane, some 30 miles away. They left their hiding places in the forests before dawn on
Friday and arrived here as the sun rose on Saturday.
"We are so tired, I cannot even speak," said a man called Emrus, a middle-aged
shepherd with a weathered face and dirty pants who asked his last name not be used.
"I carried my son as long as I could, and then I kept carrying him. You could not
stop. You just feel this push. You must keep going or you will die."
The village of Malina Maala, their temporary refuge, does not appear on any map. It lies
on a precipice, almost a mile above sea level, a hamlet of potato farmers and shepherds.
There is not much food in Malina Maala, but there is kindness and hospitality.
The people from Kosova were taken into the homes and put before fires scented with herbs.
They were given fresh bread and boiled potatoes and bits of mutton. The overflow found
space to lie down in the schoolhouse. One home held more than 70 people.
Among all the remarkable things about the exodus to Malina Maala is this: The refugees
have found safe haven in an impoverished place, without any substantial assistance from
the vast army of international care givers, the United Nations or NATO. The refugees came,
and the people of Malina Maala took them in. It is one clue to understanding the often
chaotic history and current war in the Balkans – the pull and power of ethnicity. The
people fleeing from the Serbian paramilitary and police, who shot up their dogs and their
windows, were accepted here, because they are, like the villagers, ethnic Albanians who
speak the Albanian language and in most cases practice Muslim religion.
It is a refuge. But an uneasy one. Malina Maala lies due north of Skopje, the Macedonian
capital, but to get here one must travel a circuitous route on roads that descend from bad
to worse until the road becomes a footpath. When it rains, as it did today, the roads are
axle deep with mud. Skopje has cellular phones and Internet access. In Malina Maala, the
chickens seek shelter from the howling wind. There are no phones, and the first word the
outside world had of the arrival of the 3,000 refugees was when a village representative
traveled to Skopje to tell the United Nations refugee commission.
For now, the U.N. agency thinks the refugees are best off in Malina Maala. Its
representatives say it would be hard to transport them down from the mountain, given the
road condition. Buses could not make the trip.
To get to Malina Maala, one must travel along a contested border between Yugoslavia and
Macedonia. Ten miles from the border, the landscape suddenly changes from populated
villages to forests and mountain. No villages. No homes. Past police checkpoints, and a
small NATO camp with a few dozen French soldiers and then along a dirt road that straddles
the countries. Reporters driving into Malina Maala saw Macedonian soldiers on one side of
the road and a cluster of Yugoslav army soldiers on the other.
The refugees did not pass through an official border crossing, but simply walked into
Macedonia. They were detained by Macedonian military and police for eight hours, then
released. The appearance of refugees here has led some Western officials and aid workers
to speculate that Yugoslav forces might be opening up a new corridor to push refugees into
Macedonia.
Today's influx is part of the next group of refugees expected to come from Kosova, as part
of the Yugoslav government's redoubled efforts to drive out the remaining ethnic
Albanians. Army troops began today systematic shelling of a pocket of 80,000 civilians who
were displaced from their homes in the southern Drenica region of Kosova, according to
Western officials in contact with elements of the rebel Kosova Liberation Army.
Rebel fighters reported more than 100 civilians had been killed in shelling, apparently
aimed at forcing the people out of the hills and onto the highway heading to the Albanian
and Macedonian borders.
Another pocket of 150,000 civilians in the hills east of the abandoned city of Podujevo
have also been under sustained attack, the Western officials said, and may soon head
south.
The reports about civilian casualties and a new flow of refugees could not be confirmed
independently, but officials said they suspected the assaults were designed to
"ethnically cleanse" the estimated 500,000 to 800,000 ethnic Albanian civilians
in Kosova. Virtually all have fled from their houses and they are now being hunted and
harassed in the hills and mountains.
Of those remaining, an estimated 90,000 have taken refuge west of the deserted city of
Pec; 110,000 are on the run in central Drenica region; 50,000 are hiding in the hills near
the demolished town of Decani; 90,000 are in the mountains west of Podujevo; 60,000 are
south of Klina; and 80,000 are believed to be in the Berisha Mountains northeast of
Malisevo.
In Albania, relief officials said they expected another 20,000 refugees to arrive today,
after about that number crossed on Saturday. Refugees passing through the main border
checkpoint near Kukes said the road was crowded with people and vehicles as far as 15
miles back into Yugoslavia.
The refugees inched into Albania this morning in a cold, driving rainstorm. The arrivals
shivered in open wagons under sheets of plastic or sodden blankets, having huddled in the
open during the rainy night.
Early this morning, a car filled with seven family members seeking refuge in Albania hit a
land mine near the Morina crossing, killing five of them, border policemen said.
Yugoslav soldiers have mined the border in recent weeks, and the car's driver may not have
seen the mine on the unlighted stretch of road, said Eugene O'Sullivan, a monitor with the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
Even here in relative safety, the situation in Malina Maala is not good.
"There is very little food in the village, and the residents were already living on a
meager diet," said Lindsey Davies of the U.N. World Food Program. "There are no
extra stores. Food is going to be a priority."
Two trucks, one filled with blankets and the other with emergency rations and water,
arrived today in Malina Maala – supplies enough for 3,000 people for a day or so.
The refugees complained of stomach cramps, flu and high fevers. They asked for aspirin.
They looked exhausted and some of them said they had not slept in days. One man, Sefcet
Arizi, 30, apologized for the smell. "We have not bathed and we are dirty," he
said. "We ran and then we could not run. Then we walked. Then we started to slip in
the mud and fell. I am sorry for our mess."
The Macedonians briefly detained four men in the march of 3,000 . One was Rahim Nura, 34,
who with his brother and two nephews had been carrying by stretcher their paralyzed father
and their mother, who was suffering from exhaustion. Nura's parents were allowed into
Macedonia, but he was turned away.
"I almost died of worry for my mother and father," Nura said. He attempted the
crossing again today, and the border guards let him pass. "Now I must sleep," he
said. "I am sorry I cannot talk anymore. I must go and lie down."
Kosova Refugee Relief MP3 Album
Some of the best unsigned Recording Artists on the internet have released a compilation
"The Kosova Refugee Relief Album" to benefit the Albanian Refugees fleeing
Kosova. This is the first major compilation done entirely through the internet, at mp3.com
for this Disaster Relief. The Charity Compilation was developed and organized by Recording
Artist Dan Gray, Budahula Productions, entirely through the internet, and is available at
http://www.grays.net/Kosova/ for $9.99 with all of the artists' proceeds benefiting the
Red Cross designated for the Kosova Refugee relief effort. As more artists continue to
join the compilation, there may be additional volumes added. The "Kosova Refugee
Relief Compilation" CDs are available exclusively through mp3.com's D.A.M. (Digital
Automatic System) CD program. When the customer orders the D.A.M. CD, mp3.com makes a CD
with both the mp3 file and also the version that can played in any CD player, and ships it
directly to the customer.
This marriage of mp3 compressed music technology on the internet, together with the
Recording Artists who routinely use both, allowed a swift reaction of concerned Artists to
react to and mobilize a charity benefit for the Kosova Refugees, fleeing by the hundreds
of thousands into the neighboring countries.
This CD was conceptualized less than one week before it became available for sale. All
production contact with artists all over the world, the gathering of the songs and the
making of the compilation has been achieved entirely through the internet by e-mail and on
the World Wide Web. Dan Gray issued the challenge to fellow artists on the Internet and
they responded in force. The result is a wonderfully eclectic compilation of music in
genres including: Punk, Techno, Rock, Country, Instrumental, Folk, and even a hard to
classify number. These are hard working artists, and this effort represents true sacrifice
in the spirit of the best charitable musical efforts of the past such as Live Aid and Farm
Aid.
The CDs and all information on the compilation can be found at the Kosova Refugee Relief
CDs web site - http://www.grays.net/Kosova/ the CDs can be purchased for $9.99 directly
from mp3.com over the internet.
SAS teams move in to help KLA 'rise
from the ashes' (Telegraph)
A KLA bunker in Kosova
By Philip Sherwell
BRITISH and American special forces teams are working undercover in Kosova with the rebel
Kosova Liberation Army to identify Serbian targets for Nato bombing raids.
SAS soldiers fluent in Albanian and Serbian have dodged minefields and Serbian patrols
around the torched villages along Kosova's border with Albania and Macedonia to enter the
war-battered province on surveillance missions.
One of their priorities is to pinpoint the location of Serbian tanks and weapons which -
as The Telegraph revealed last week - have been hidden in garages, buildings and even
mosques in villages "ethnically cleansed" of their Albanian populations. Nato
later admitted that it was frustrated by the success of the Serbian tactics.
The SAS is also advising the rebels at their strongholds in northern Albania, where the
KLA has launched a major recruitment and training operation. According to high-ranking KLA
officials, the SAS is using two camps near Tirana, the Albanian capital, and another on
the Kosovan border to teach KLA officers how to conduct intelligence-gathering operations
on Serbian positions.
In a major coup for the KLA, the rebels captured a Yugoslav army officer during skirmishes
inside Kosova near the Albanian border and handed him over to Nato. The alliance is
holding the man in Albania as a prisoner of war.
It is the latest evidence of the growing co-operation between Nato and the KLA, a movement
once denounced by the West's leaders as "terrorists" and dismissed by its
military strategists as a ragtag force.
In the clearest indication that Nato has reassessed the role and value of the once-derided
force, the alliance spokesman James Shea enthusiastically predicted that the KLA would
"rise from the ashes" and play an increasingly important role in the current
campaign.
The alliance is now quietly drafting the KLA into its war against Slobodan Milosevic, the
Serbian leader. It is even considering plans to train them and ease the arms embargo on
Yugoslavia to supply them with weapons such as mortars and rocket-propelled grenades.
KLA commanders who gained their military experience as officers in the old and
once-respected Yugoslav People's Army know that training is a priority if they are to
convert their enthusiastic but raw recruits - many of them young Kosovars who have
returned from western Europe - into a strong fighting force.
The rebels have been contacted by several private military consultants but fear they may
have links with the Serbian secret services, a senior KLA figure told The Sunday
Telegraph.
They are negotiating for a long-term training deal with Military and Professional
Resources International, a mercenary company run by former American officers who operate
with semi-official approval from the Pentagon and played a key role in building up
Croatia's armed forces.
From their remaining enclaves within Kosova and reconnaissance missions staged from
Albania, the rebels already use satellite and cellular telephones to provide Nato with
details on Serbian targets. Their information supplements the surveillance picture
constructed from satellite photography and Awacs aircraft.
At the headquarters in the northern Albanian town of Krume, Gani Syla, a KLA spokesman,
said: "We think it would be a very good idea if Nato provided us with arms. If they
had done it earlier, our people would not have had to flee our land as we could have
protected them inside Kosova."
Just as important as weapons, however, would be the training that Nato could provide.
Although the KLA has been doing its best to look professional as it prepares for war at
its bases dotted around northern Albania, the reality is very different.
"The KLA is a mixture of good officers and ill-trained volunteers," said a
Western defence analyst. "But a big plus is that they have the popular sentiment of
the population on their side. That is an important start. The Croats and Bosnian Muslims
did not start off in much better shape and look at them now."
In Krume, Kukes and Bajram Curri, which resemble KLA garrison towns, there is no
resentment from local people as rebel soldiers and military policemen wander openly
through the streets. Outside the KLA office in Krume, nine-year-old Ardi wears a rebel cap
and carries a bullet. It is, he says unprompted, "for Slobodan Milosevic".
KLA mountain men take fight back to
Serbs (Telegraph)
Erinda Muriqi, a new KLA volunteer.
By Michael Smith in Kosova
THE KLA is portrayed in the West as a bedraggled, largely ineffective group. But the
guards at the entrance of the Rugovo valley, a KLA stronghold in western Kosova, were far
from bedraggled. They wore new combat uniforms and the KLA badge.
Their weapons were old AK47 and M48 rifles with Chinese inscriptions which showed they
dated from the Korean War and had almost certainly come from Albania, Beijing's former
foothold in eastern Europe.
But the 20 or so soldiers guarding the single route we took through the mountains was an
indication that their strength is greater than suggested by Western defence sources. One
of the young English-speaking guerrillas was wearing civilian clothes. Gania had a sad,
haunted face. He explained that he was a new recruit.
A 26-year-old student of English in Pristina, he joined the KLA after hearing of the death
of his parents and brother. They were among a dozen people killed by Serb paramilitaries
in the area around a sugar factory in the Pec suburb of Pecske Polje.
His account of the massacre tallied precisely with that given by refugees coming into the
northern Montenegrin town of Rozaje three weeks ago. Each victim had been shot once
through the head as an encouragement to terrified relatives to flee their homes. Now Gania
is taking the fight back to the Serbs, but it is a brutal war fought in conditions
bordering on the medieval.
Up a dung-covered track was what looked like an old cattle hut. A strong smell of
disinfectant wafted through the door. This was a KLA hospital. Through another two doors
was a room containing seven young men. Five were lying on mattresses covered in blankets.
Two "walking wounded" were sitting against a wall.
Sabit was in the furthest bed from the door. Just 19 years old, he was wounded in the leg
a week ago as he tried to move along the front line between the villages of Lombardh and
Jablonice. "We had been involved in five days of fighting," Sabit said. "I
was crawling, trying to hide from the snipers. There was a burst of semi-automatic rifle
fire and I felt a pain in my knee. My friends dragged me out."
He said he was from Dejn Rahovec, a village north-west of Pristina which is still held by
the KLA but has been cut off by the Serbs. "I don't know where my parents are,"
he said. "I haven't seen them for two and a half months."
Asked when he thought he would get back into the front line, his reply appeared hopelessly
optimistic. "Two or three more days," he said. No, he was not afraid.
"Because if I am killed, I will not die. It will be for my people and they will
always remember me."
Like all guerrilla armies, the KLA makes up for its shortcomings in equipment by its
fieldcraft. Selman, a 23-year-old, described how they went on reconnaissance missions,
probing the Serb police and Yugoslav army lines for weaknesses and gathering intelligence.
He and four others had just returned from a night recce of the area around Pec. "We
got within two miles of the town and sat observing what was going on for five hours,"
he said.
"I would say between 60 and 70 per cent of the town has been destroyed and we watched
as lorries were loaded with valuables, fridges, televisions, taken from the houses of
Albanians. At four in the morning, the Serb police spotted us and opened fire. But we
withdrew. We did not get involved. We had been told not to get into any fights."
Their close observation of Serb movements appeared to have allowed them to walk through
the police lines with ease. Several arriving in the village had taken part in a remarkable
four-day mission to rescue refugees trapped in the forests around the northern town of
Istok.
"We heard that there were a number of wounded civilians trapped in the hills above
Istok," said Besnik, a 22-year-old who broke off his studies of English literature to
join the KLA. "Someone rang us and said they were dying in the mountains of Kalichan.
Fifty of us crossed into another brigade's area and through the Serb lines." They
found the refugees had been there a week without food.
"There were about 20 of them, including a 13-year-old and one man of 70 whose right
leg had been blown to bits. For 16 hours we carried them back through the Serb lines and
here to safety. "A lot of these wounded people are up in the mountains. That's why we
need the help of Nato."
The "commander", the term used loosely by the KLA to describe any senior
officer, said his name was Salih, a professor of engineering. He and his lieutenant were
dressed in smart camouflage uniform and carried powerful sniper rifles.
Pride of place in one of their houses was taken by a photograph of the moderate Kosova
leader Ibrahim Rugova, belying claims that the KLA opposes him. Salih said the 136th
Brigade controlled the whole of the Rugovo valley, an area 12 miles long and eight miles
wide, a protected area for 17 Albanian villages. He asked why Nato was so reluctant to
send in ground troops. "If the Nato troops don't come in it will be difficult because
the Serbs have heavy guns," he said. "We would prefer Nato to give us the guns
so we can do the job ourselves."
He was insistent that it was far too dangerous to take Western journalists to the front
line as he said the Yugoslav Army had begun attacking his men across the mountains from
Montenegro, opening a second front in an attempt to prise them out of their stronghold in
western Kosova.
It was impossible to confirm his claim, which is bound to cause more tension in the
already strained relations between Belgrade and Montenegro. But reports of an unusually
large number of wounded soldiers being taken to the hospital in the eastern Montenegrin
town of Plav, close to the eastern border with Kosova, lent it credence.
On our first evening in Kosova, another commander, Selman, a professor of agriculture, who
said he was in charge of "information", arrived from brigade headquarters with
news of a KLA success.
"Our men have killed Shari Purici," he said. "His name wasn't widely known,
but he was one of the worst criminals involved in all this. He was a close associate of
Arkan. He made war in Bosnia and then came to Pec. He and his men went into a place called
Pecske Polje where there is a sugar factory. They killed 12 people in less than 40
minutes. Each was shot once in the side of the head.
"The other day, he and eight of his gang went to the village of Novosello trying to
commit more crimes. But our men had been told to stop him going into our villages. There
was a fight and we killed him." As he finished speaking, the women of the house
brought in cups of hot, sweet tea and there was a grim celebration at the news that the
KLA had not only managed to avenge Gana's parents and their neighbours but more
importantly had prevented Purici and his men from carrying out any further killings.
KLA recruits leave London
New KLA volunteers. Photo by AFP.
By Rajeev Syal
MORE than 500 Albanians have left Britain after volunteering to become guerrilla fighters
in the war against Serbia, according to Kosova Liberation Army representatives in London.
Men and women from Britain's 8,000-strong Albanian community have gone to Tirana, the
Albanian capital, to be trained as soldiers. They are responding to a general order issued
by the KLA last month asking all Albanian people from 18 to 50 to report to join the war
to free Kosova.
Pleurat Sejdiu, the KLA's official representative in London, said yesterday that they had
been inundated with new recruits. "We have received many requests to join the KLA
from people who have heard that their friends and relatives have been killed or hurt in
the conflict," he said.
More than 340 volunteers have signed up to the KLA in the past three weeks. Once they have
pledged themselves to the army, they are interviewed by a number of KLA representatives at
a secret north London address.
One volunteer, Ekrem, 34, last week pledged to fight for Kosova - even though he has never
been there - and has lived a settled, trouble-free life in Britain for four years after
leaving Albania.
He said that he was ready to leave his job as a mini-cab driver, his British girlfriend of
two years and his home in Cricklewood, north London, for the war because his cousin,
Burim, died fighting for the KLA.
"I do not want to die - but if I do not go and defend my brothers, and fight for my
family members who have died in battle, I cannot expect a single Nato soldier to die for
Kosova," Ekrem said. He will be sent to Tirana via Italy because the airport in the
Albanian capital has been closed. Once in Italy, he will cross the Adriatic Sea by ferry
and take a coach to Tirana.
The volunteers are allocated to military training in camps around the Albanian capital.
Ex-servicemen from the Albanian or Yugoslavian armies receive just 15 days of training. If
they are without military experience they are sent away for a month's training.
80 SAS men in Kosova to target
death squads
By Alastair Mcqueen
A SQUADRON of SAS soldiers has been sent deep into Kosova after moves to deploy US special
forces were put on hold until Congress approves the committal of US ground forces.
Eighty SAS men were ordered into action after an appeal by Nato commanders to Tony Blair.
The Prime Minister is being advised by the new Director of Special Forces, an expert in
Balkans undercover operations.
The SAS role is to target for the RAF the Serb Special Police and army units responsible
for the eviction and massacre of thousands of ethnic Albanians. They have also been
ordered to find and mark massacre sites, to locate the hideouts of the death squad leaders
and to find the secret arsenals where the Serbs have hidden many of their heavy weapons.
The SAS is also on hand to rescue Kosovars who are trapped or awaiting execution. A
Parachute Regiment battalion has been put on standby to move to the Balkans if required.
The paras are the only infantry unit trained in large-scale hostage rescue.
Ministers have overturned their original decision that no ground troops - including
Special Forces - were to set foot in Kosova until agreement for an international force had
been thrashed out. They also feared that if SAS soldiers were captured they would be
paraded in show trials or tortured and executed.
However, Nato commanders were anxious to make their airstrikes more precise. An SAS member
said: "Technology is brilliant, but all the technology in the world cannot replace
the Mark One Eyeball. Having men on the ground reporting back accurately and guiding
aircraft and other troops to locations is the ideal. We can check out targets before the
RAF even lift off the ground or we can change them at the last moment if the guys on the
ground spot something more important."
The soldiers are understood to be wearing their normal camouflaged lightweight windproof
suits for moving across country, but once they find lying-up points or observation posts
they will change into fleeces to avoid exposure and hypothermia.
As allied aircraft approach they move closer to the target, pointing laser beams at the
location and quietly talking the pilots into position. They will carry the latest US
weapons including an Armalite rifle with a grenade launcher, MiniMi machine-guns,
long-range "super rifles" plus mortars, claymore mines and pistols.
Song in the mists that drove the
enemy away
Tim Butcher in Tropoje
FOUR months ago Tuli fitted kitchen units into Eric Clapton's Chelsea home. Two days ago
the young Kosovar stood to attention in a muddy Albanian field, swore allegiance to his
homeland and buried two comrades from the Kosova Liberation Army shot at his side.
Away from the frontline for the first time in weeks, he grinned as he accepted a
cigarette. "Cheers mate," he said in his proudest North Kensington accent,
acquired from a squat somewhere up the Harrow Road. Tuli then began to recount a
fascinating tale of one of the many bloody skirmishes currently underway in western Kosova
.
"Our orders were to hold our position," he said, lighting the cigarette with a
camouflage Zippo lighter he had bought at Camden market. "The Serbs came at about
2pm. There had been shelling for hours but we are used to it and our positions are well
dug in. Suddenly we saw them, coming through the mist - maybe 60 or 70 of them. There was
firing, so much firing. At one point they were 15 metres away, screaming at us to
surrender. But we screamed back and told them to go to hell. They could hear everything.
They were just there," he said pointing to the other side of the room.
Other members of his platoon came into the room at this point. A squat, hairy,
weatherbeaten figure with the air of an NCO scowled at the young man but nothing would
stop his flow. "It was then we started singing. We all know the words for our song
and so it was we all began to sing. As with one voice we sang, 'Kosova, Kosova, you are
homeland, I swear I will give my life for you'."
The other members of his platoon looked up when they heard him going through the words in
Albanian. The word he used for swear was "besa". There is no stronger oath for
Albanians. It is a promise that will be honoured until death.
"We heard their commander ordering them to go forward. Again and again he shouted,
but they would not come," Tuli added. "Perhaps they were scared. After all it is
not their homeland so perhaps they do not want to die. There was so much firing but then
an amazing thing happened. The mist came down and suddenly you could not see two metres in
front of your face. "When it lifted they had gone, taking their dead with them,
leaving a trail of blood in the snow."
He would not give precise details of the location of this clash but it was above the
snowline, meaning the Serbs are still making it difficult for the KLA to move down the
mountain slopes of the Kosova-Albanian border and into the flat of the Dukagjin plain. The
guerrillas' aim is to try to open up supply routes into central Kosova.
For Tuli and his fellow soldiers the precise target is the town of Gjakove. All of the
troops from his unit come from there and all they want to do is go home.
"From our position you can look down on Gjakove. There it is in your hand," Tuli
explained holding out his right palm. "You just wait. When we get it back, we are
really going to fly." The price in blood is not going to be cheap. Gjakove's finest
handball player was one of the two men Tuli buried. Hashkim Idriz was hit by gunfire
during the firefight and died instantly.
Tuli and his fellow Gjakove soldiers made a night of the wake. They got absolutely
hammered on home-made brandy and beer before waking with blinding hangovers and
extravagant stories about how much they had managed to drink.
Each soldier looked tired and dirty but they still managed to look utterly determined in
their camouflage clothes procured from a variety of European armies. Inevitably, Tuli wore
a British smock acquired at the same market stall in Camden as the lighter. Tuli was right
when, to the tune of a It's a Long Way to Tipperary, he started to hum: "It's a Long
Way to Gjakove."
Rebel forces begin to hit back at
Serbs
By Philip Smucker
KOSOVAR rebels and Western diplomats said yesterday that the Kosova Liberation Army was
punching holes in the Serb war machine along mountain passes in southern Yugoslavia.
The KLA and Western officials in Skopje reported increased guerrilla penetration into
Kosova from both Albania and Macedonia. The infiltration from Macedonia comes after that
border had been effectively sealed for two months. "The KLA is succeeding to push its
troops into this town and establish a forward stronghold," said Gani Sylaj, a KLA
official in Krume, Albania.
Rebel leaders and political officials of the KLA said that their gains would only lead to
complete victory in Kosova and the return of refugees with the addition of Nato ground
troops.
While Western leaders appear divided over the merits of funding the KLA, rebels say that
they are succeeding in securing new supply lines through Yugoslav army positions on the
border. The goal of the KLA's most recent push is to secure the destroyed town of Junik
which is seen by the rebel leadership as a forward supply base for all of Kosova. Junik
was overrun months ago by Serb forces and used as a base to mine Kosova's western border
against would-be infiltrators.
Western officials said the KLA gains dovetailed with their own war aims. In Washington,
Gen Henry Shelton, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, suggested that Nato's
non-stop bombing of Serb targets was geared at giving the resurgent KLA the upper hand in
its civil war. He said the aim of Nato bombing was either to force Milosevic to seek a
political settlement or "until the balance of power shifts in favour of the KLA in
Kosova".
At Nato headquarters yesterday, Jamie Shea, the alliance spokesman, said Serb forces in
Kosova were being "harassed" by the KLA, which he likened to "a phoenix
rising from the ashes". Mr Shea said the Serb military was now caught in a
"vice" between the Kosovar rebels on one hand and Nato forces on the other.
New rebel fighters are arriving in the northern Albanian highlands by the hundreds each
day. Western monitors and Albanian army sources in the northern city of Kukes estimate
that four new brigades - as many as 12,000 soldiers - are prepared to plunge into Kosova's
war zone. Another 30,000 are waiting for training or are expected to arrive within weeks.
Young men flock to join KLA
fighters
Volunteers leaving Yonkers, NY to join KLA in Kosova. Photo by The New York
Times.
By Sandra Laville in Kukes
THE Kosova Liberation Army moved thousands of troops up to key border positions in the
Albanian hills yesterday ready for a major offensive as gun battles erupted on the border.
As young men and women were driven in lorries, vans and cars out of Kukes and Krume,
fighting broke out on the border at Tropolje between Serbs and KLA soldiers. Gunfire could
be heard around the villages over the border from Morin. A senior KLA commander said his
army was still active in Kosova, protecting civilians "but we need weapons".
At an old factory in Kukes, the rebel militia's base in the town, Hanemsha Gashi had just
10 minutes to say goodbye to her only son. For 10 days she had tried to stop him but
yesterday he jumped on a lorry to be driven off to war. On Thursday night, while his
parents and five sisters were sleeping, he had slipped out to sign up with the KLA.
Araban Gashi was just one of the thousands moved up to the hills around Vlahen in the
biggest mass mobilisation of the rebels since the start of the Nato bombing. A weeping Mrs
Gashi watched him go, hugging her eldest daughter Lulvere to her chest. Around her were
other mothers, fathers and sisters, clutching each other for comfort as they waved off
their siblings. "He kept talking about joining up to fight for his country's freedom
and I begged him not to," Mrs Gashi said. "For 10 days, it was all he could talk
about. I pleaded but he wouldn't listen. He came to me yesterday morning and said he was
going to war. He said, 'I want to fight for myself and my country.' "
Thousands of troops were mobilised from Krume, where the KLA has its headquarters in
Albania. They were driven to camps in the hills around the border where for days Serb
troops have been digging in and laying mines.
The KLA's recruitment campaign worked for Araban and it claims that many thousands more
have joined up. In Kukes, they have a visible presence in refugee camps. A recruitment
video is broadcast nightly, calling on Kosovars aged between 18 and 50 to join up. Many
young Kosovar men who left their country to avoid being conscripted into the Yugoslav army
have returned to join the KLA. One young recruit in Krume said: "There are people
from Germany, from Britain and all over Europe. I know one man who was Kosovar but has
lived in Germany all his life. He has come here to fight."
As Araban set out on the two-hour journey to join his fellow rebels, fighting broke out
between Serbs and KLA soldiers at Tropolje, an area where they have been heavily
recruiting. Behind him, Araban left his parents and five sisters who fled their home in
Opoja with him six days ago and who are now sleeping in a mosque with hundreds of other
refugees. "We left with only a few possessions," said Araban's father, Nexhat.
The family's only memento of their son is his small passport picture. His sister, Lulvere,
19, said: "This morning I told him 'Don't go.' But he turned and said, 'Let's not
part badly. I have to go.' "
Before the family were expelled from their home, Araban had worked with his father in a
glass-cutting business. Recently, he has been the main breadwinner. Fighting away tears,
his father said: "My son never talked about the KLA in Kosova. I don't think he knew
much about them. But, since we had to leave in this terrible way, he has wanted to fight.
All his friends are signing up and he wants to go and I now understand why."
Fighting between KLA and Serbian
forces in Qafa e Hajlės (KP)
Rugovė, April 19th (Kosovapress) Last night and today, fierce combations between units of
KLA and serbian military-police forces in Rugovė. They were concentrated mainly in Qafė
tė Hajlės. The intensity of the fight has been very high.There are informations that
enemy has incurred losses and some enemy soldiers are being wounded, whereas in KLA side
nobody is hurt or injured. Serbian military criminal police has forced to escape the
population of the two villages of the Monte Negro near to Rugova; Dacajve and Bukel.
Fierce fighting in Malėsia e
Gallapit
Prishtinė, April 19th (Kosovapress) According to the informations coming from Gallap,
even today a fierce battle between units of KLA and serbian forces is taking place there.
After the received new reinforcements in military toops, serbian forces in the afternoon
tried to enter with ground troops in the regions which are under control of KLA.The
bombardments with grenades are coming from the hill of Stalovės, near Koliqit, aiming to
penetrate in the territory between Grashtica and Keqekollė. The battle is still going on.
Serbian forces are having many losses in military technique and in soldiers, just like
yesterday. While from KLA side, only three soldiers are being wounded. There are
combations in Marevc and Mramor too.
Fighting in Bellanicė
Malishevė, April 19th (Kosovapress) Today, since 8°°-10°°, in the village Bellanicė,
commune of Malishevo, fierce confrontations between units of KLA and serbian terrorist
forces took place. There informations that enemy has got losses in military technique as
well as in soldiers, while from KLA side, nobody was injured.
Four soldiers of KLA are buried with all homages
Malishevė, April 19th (Kosovapress) In the yesterday fights in Tėrpezė, Arllat,
Llapushnik and Kizharekė, four soldiers of KLA have been killed and they are buried today
in the martyrs graves. These are the names of these martyr soldiers: Mentor Morina from
Komorani, Islam Kastrati from Kizhareka, Ramadan Bytyqi from Gjergjica and Halim
Bajraktari from Ēikatova Re.
Serbian terrorist forces took revenge over the civilian population
Komoran, April 19th (Kosovapress) Today in the Llapushniku gorge in Arllat and Tėrpezė,
NATO airplanes attacked serbian forces and they caused a lot of damage to serbian forces
in military technique. Immediately after these NATO bombardments, serbian military-police
forces from their positions in Kizharekė and Komoran, started to shoot with grenade and
projectiles in the direction of the Llapushniku gorge, in the hill where albanian civil
population is placed, and these attacks were taken in sign of revenge of NATO airstrikes.
There are no information about eventual damages as result of these serbian bombardments.
Fighting in some villages of Gallak
Prishtinė, April 19th (Kosovapress) Serbian criminal forces have undertaken new attacks
from early in the morning against villages of: Mramor, Viti, Gėrbesh, Suteskė and Busi.
Units of KLA are keeping strong to their positions and they have reached to stop the enemy
forces to enter in these villages. Yesterday serbian forces in region incurred big losses
in military technique and in soldiers too. Barbaric actions of the serbian enemy are
taking place in other villages of the Gallapi zone.
Successful military actions near Vushtrri
Vushtrri, April 19th (Kosovapress) Yesterday, fierce combations between units of KLA and
serbian terrorist forces took place in the village of Shtitaricė, and Galicė in the
commune of Vushtrri. These actions were undertaken by the special unit of this zone in
coordination with the second Battalion of the 142 Brigade.Another same action was
undertaken by the special unit of the Operative Zone of Shala in the village of Broboniq.
Another action was undertaken yesterday by the unit of the 141 Brigade "Mehė
Uka", in the road Vushtrri-Mitrovicė, as a result 3 serbian para militaries are
being killed and their armament were taken.
Armed confrontation in Gėrgoc and Zhebel
Deēan, April 19th (Kosovapress) Fierce combations were held yesterday in the villages of
Gėrgoc and Zhebel. Enemy forces tried to penetrate in the KLA positions but KLA units
responded strongly forcing them to retreat. In the village Cėrmjanė serbian terrorist
forces have gathered the civilian population and they are keeping them under iron
enclosure.