[ALBSA-Info] On Kosova

[Agron Alibali]

  The Scotsman
 September 21, 2000, Thursday

Pg. 12

SERBS WERE PLANNING KOSOVO TERRORISM

 Christian Jennings In Pristina

    THREE Serb security forces personnel arrested
inside Kosovo in a British-led
operation were planning to ambush and destroy
international targets, including
United Nations institutions, in a campaign of violence
in the lead-up to
Kosovo's October elections, military sources have told
The Scotsman.

    In a midnight raid on Monday, code-named
"Operation Ambuscate", British and 
Swedish NATO troops seized three Serbs, two of them
alleged members of the Serb 
army special forces, in the central Kosovan town of
Gracanica.

    In the raid on the Serb enclave three properties -
one of them, according to
international sources, a brothel frequented by Russian
NATO troops - were
searched, and explosives, detonators, guns and
hand-grenades discovered.

    "We believe that their targets were going to be
buildings, NATO and UN
vehicles, international targets, both in Pristina and
Gracanica," said one
international official. "Given that any attack on 
Albanians  inside Pristina
would also include an attack on internationals, we can
say that they would have 
been targeted too," a senior United Nations official
said.

    A NATO source said offices and buildings of the
Organisation for Security
and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), were also thought
to have been planned as
targets for the Serb insurgency cell, which had
infiltrated Kosovo from the
Serbian town of Nis on several occasions over the last
few weeks, according to
UN police officials.

    "We got to these guys before they had had a chance
to bring in all their
material from Serbia," said the UN official. "If all
of their explosives and
weapons had been bought into Kosovo and used, there
would have been many
casualties."

    There are 43,000 NATO troops based in Kosovo from
some 30 countries, some
3,500 United Nations staff, and more than 300 aid
organisations working in
Kosovo. The three arrested Serbs had 1.25kg of plastic
explosive in their
possession, and intelligence officials believed that
more would have been bought
in following an initial terrorist attack due to have
taken place inside Kosovo
in the run-up to this weekend's Yugoslav elections.

    "Operation Ambuscate" drew on domestic and
military intelligence resources
from Britain, Sweden and other European countries, but
Royal Ulster Constabulary
officers attached to Kosovo's United Nations police
played a leading role in the
intelligence operation that lead up to Monday night's
raid.

    Britain's senior commander in Kosovo, Brigadier
Rob Fry, said that there was
"compelling" evidence to link the men to the Serb
armed forces. A British
prosecutor has been assigned the case in Pristina,
where the three men are being
detained by UN police.

    Under de facto law in Kosovo prisoners can be kept
in custody for up to 72
hours without charge. The raid on Gracanica involved
British troops from the 1st
Battalion, the Princess of Wales' Royal Regiment, men
from the Royal Engineer
Explosive Ordnance Disposal team, as well as Swedish
troops attached to Kosovo's
British-run central sector.

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