[ALBSA-Info] AFP on Kosova

[Agron Alibali]

Europe's backyard threat?
Ethnic Albanians in Kosovo have so far ignored calls to embrace radical Islam

REUTERS 
Orthodox Slav-Macedonian priests pass a NLA rebel at the Matejce monastery yesterday. 
By Alexandre Peyrille Agence France-Presse 
PRISTINA - Ethnic Albanians in predominantly Muslim Kosovo practice a tolerant form of Islam and are ignoring calls from fundamentalist Islamic groups to embrace radical views that could damage their ties to the West. 
"Albanians are not very religious - only 10 percent are practicing Muslims," Qemail Morina, the head of the highest religious authority in the UN-administered province, said. The Western-clad leader of the Islamic Community in Kosovo dismissed any fears that radical groups linked to Osama bin Laden were active in Kosovo. 
The interior minister of Serbia, the Yugoslav republic of which Kosovo is formally a province, said on Wednesday he had "a good deal of information on the activities" in the Balkans "of the world's best-known promoter of terrorism" - a reference to bin Laden. The minister, Dusan Mihajlovic, also charged that "bin Laden's organization has two bases in Bosnia-Herzegovina, two in Kosovo, and is also present in Albania." Morina viewed the comments by Mihajlovic - whose country is predominantly Christian - with considerable skepticism. "We have a hard time just filling up the mosques, so the fundamentalist threat..." he commented, tailing off with a sigh. Indeed, Kosovo's Albanian community shows great admiration for the Christian West, their infatuation being especially pronounced for the United States, which led the NATO bombing campaign against Slobodan Milosevic's Yugoslav government in 1999. In the streets of Pristina, Kosovo's largest city, women dress in distinctly Western style. 
Ethnic Albanians in Kosovo want to join the European Union and become a member of NATO if their province ever wins independence. Their negative opinion of fundamentalism hardened after projects funded by Islamic NGOs to restore or rebuild mosques in Kosovo resulted in the destruction of part of the province's Ottoman architectural heritage. 
Kosovo's three main leaders are solidly pro-Western and want nothing to do with radical branches of Islam. Ibrahim Rugova has even gone so far as to give pride of place in his office to a photograph of Pope John Paul II.



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