[ALBSA-Info] DPA

[Agron Alibali]

Deutsche Presse-Agentur 

August 9, 2001, Thursday, BC Cycle  


Albanian rebels claim responsibility for deadly highway ambush 

Pristina/Skopje 




A new armed group of ethnic Albanians on Thursday claimed responsibility for the killing of 10 Macedonian army reservists in a highway ambush a day earlier and pledged to go on fighting regardless of any political agreement. 

The "Albanian National Army" (AKSH) e-mailed a statement to several Albanian-language media in the region, saying a combined unit of its fighters and of the National Liberation Army (UCK) carried the attack out "in revenge" for the killing of a UCK commander and four other guerrillas Tuesday in an Albanian quarter of Skopje. 

It signalled that it will not recognise the peace agreement reached in principal between Macedonian and ethnic Albanian politicians Wednesday in the southern Macedonian town of Ohrid. 

"AKSH and patriotic commanders of the UCK do not intend to stop the war for a single moment and to recognise any 'political agreement' reached of Slavic-Macedonians and their Albanian-speaking collaborators," it said in the statement. 

The group began issuing statements over the previous weeks in radical Albanian-language media in Kosovo. It claims to be an all- Albanian Army, with the "general staff" operating on Mount Korab, in Albania proper. 

Thursday's statement was marked "number nine". 

In the Albanian-dominated province Thursday, a newspaper quoted a top UCK commander as saying that rebels have welcomed the political deal made in the southern town of Ohrid. 

"The agreement meets the goals that everyone was committed to - the United States, European Union, all the people, and UCK as well," said Gezim Ostreni, UCK "chief of staff". 

He stopped short of saying that the UCK will embrace the agreement and eventually agree to disarm. 

In his interview, Ostreni denied that it was the UCK who attacked the convoy on the Skopje-Tetovo highway Wednesday, in which 10 army reservists were killed. 

"We were not in the area at the time", he said, referring to the ambush and the subsequent fight that lasted for hours. 

Last week, in another release, AKSH took the responsability for the killing of two Serbian police in the village of Muhovac in Presevo Valley, in the 5-kilometre buffer surrounding Kosovo. dpa al bb eg 




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