[ALBSA-Info] ANALYSIS-Kosovo bombers bring NATO nightmare closer

[Gazhebo at aol.com]

ANALYSIS-Kosovo bombers bring NATO nightmare closer

By Douglas Hamilton

BRUSSELS, Feb 18 (Reuters) - NATO allies fear their troops could be the next 
target of Kosovo's bombers if the ethnic Albanian militants decide they are 
blocking the province's road to independent statehood. 

The risk of peacekeepers and other symbols of "the international community" 
becoming targets has figured in NATO's nightmares for months, alliance 
sources say. 

They are worried that extremists may use tactics borrowed from Northern 
Ireland and the Basque country to test the international community's 
commitment to a multi-ethnic Kosovo that remains part of Yugoslavia. 

The remote-control bomb that blew up a busload of Serbian civilians on 
Friday, killing seven Serbs, could just as easily have been triggered under 
Swedish military escort vehicles at the front and back of the bus convoy. 

Landmine blasts, like the one on Sunday which killed three Serb policemen, 
could be used against United Nations workers or the European Union monitoring 
teams recently sent to the tense region where it happened. 

What some NATO sources call the "Northern Ireland" scenario loomed recently 
when British troops patrolling Kosovo's eastern boundary were fired on by 
some of the ethnic Albanian guerrillas they were sent to stop infiltrating 
Serbia's Presevo Valley. 

NO WILL TO RECONCILE 

The NATO powers lead 60,000 troops in the Balkans, and they have no clear 
exit strategy. 

Military sources say some commanders feel that the peacekeeping missions have 
done just about all they can. 

As in Northern Ireland, only a political peace process backed by broad 
popular support, as well as international arm-twisting, stands a chance of 
halting Kosovo's violence. 

Without a peace process, NATO-led soldiers from some 30 countries could 
become sitting ducks in a peacekeeping quagmire and could be forced to 
retreat into fortress camps, neutralising their mission. 

Just 20 months ago, incoming NATO troops were kissed, feted and garlanded as 
liberators by ecstatic Albanians freed from the terror of Serbian 
ethnic-cleansing by an 11-week air war. 

Kosovo was the world's first example of a large-scale "humanitarian 
intervention" through unmatched military power. 

But it had no power to change minds, and the people NATO came to pacify and 
reunite mostly don't want reconciliation. 

When Serbian hawk Slobodan Milosevic was toppled last October, the West 
expected, perhaps naively, that Albanians would cooperate with the democratic 
reformists who took over. 

But moderate Albanian leaders seem irresolute at best. 

On Kosovo's eastern border fresh conflict threatens as Albanian separatists, 
evidently with little heed of the West's growing impatience, keep up their 
attempt to provoke Serbia. 

U.S. and Russian troops blocking further guerrilla movement into the Presevo 
Valley could be attacked from both sides. 

Mainly French troops holding the line in the divided northern city of 
Mitrovica have been stoned and petrol-bombed by angry Albanians who believe 
the French are pro-Serb. 

NATO angrily condemned the bus bombing. 

"NATO did not conduct its air campaign in order to see ethnic cleansing by 
one group replaced by the ethnic attacks and intimidation of another," 
Secretary General George Robertson said. 

"The support of the international community must not be taken for granted," 
he warned. 

But Milosevic's moderate successor, Vojislav Kostunica, complained that KFOR 
was being too passive. 

Visiting Moscow this week, Robertson can expect fresh demands from Russia to 
stamp out Albanian extremism. 

NO PLAN B 

Kosovars want a path to independence soon, but suspect the West of stalling. 
Many see its aim of easing Kosovo back into some form of federal link to 
Serbia as treachery. 

An estimated 10,000 Kosovars were murdered by Serb forces. 

Moderate leaders know Kosovo must rely on Western sympathy, because there 
will be no second air war on its behalf. But a violent few are ready to risk 
squandering that commodity, perhaps to the point of fomenting hostility to 
NATO. 

Robertson sent a coded warning to the Presevo Valley guerrillas last Thursday 
that the NATO-ordered buffer zone they use as a safe haven could be altered 
to let in Serbian forces. 

A rebel spokesman there responded that "the Albanians would be forced to 
resist within their power." 

This may threaten the sort of "asymmetric war" to which even NATO's 
formidably armed units are vulnerable, as were British troops in Northern 
Ireland and Americans in Beirut, Mogadishu, and most recently aboard the USS 
Cole. 

The West has spent billions of dollars to keep the peace in the Balkans and 
pay for redevelopment and NATO allies took scores of casualties over three 
years of Bosnia "peacekeeping." 

It's questionable whether Western public opinion support the sight of body 
bags coming home from Kosovo in the name of imposing "democracy by force." 

U.S. President George W. Bush, a key voice in the future of the KFOR mission, 
says he does not believe U.S. forces are meant for "nation building." 

The allies insist they have the will and stamina to stay on for the long 
haul, "an end-state, not an end-date." 

But if the desired end-state -- peaceful, multi-ethnic, democracy -- is 
drowned in bloodshed, what is Plan B?