Remember how intervention in Iraq created a terror base and safe haven?! Oh, the double standard when it comes to the Serbia-Kosovo issue…
KiM Info Newsletter 10-05-07
FOUR OUT OF SIX ISLAMIST TERROR PLOTTERS IN US KOSOVO ALBANIANS
WASHINGTON POST (USA)
Plot illustrates Balkans’ role as Islamist foothold
Prosecutors described the men as “radical Islamists,” with four coming from the province of Kosovo in the former Yugoslavia, where the ethnic Albanian population of Muslims fought one of the several wars that grew out of the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Suspect Agron Abdullahu, who faces only weapons violations in the case, was described in court papers as a “sniper in Kosovo.” U.S. officials said the Islamists were motivated by al Qaeda sympathies.
By Bill Gertz
Published May 9, 2007
The six foreign-born Muslims accused of planning a shooting attack at the U.S. military base included four ethnic Albanians, and U.S. officials say their arrests highlight how Islamist groups are using the Balkans region to help in recruiting and financing terrorism.
Prosecutors described the men as “radical Islamists,” with four coming from the province of Kosovo in the former Yugoslavia, where the ethnic Albanian population of Muslims fought one of the several wars that grew out of the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Suspect Agron Abdullahu, who faces only weapons violations in the case, was described in court papers as a “sniper in Kosovo.”
U.S. officials said the Islamists were motivated by al Qaeda sympathies and that ringleader Mohamad Ibrahim Shnewer, who was born in Jordan, had copies of the wills of two September 11 terrorists on his laptop computer.
The other suspect in the group – accused of seeking to kill hundreds of soldiers at Fort Dix, N.J. – was born in Turkey.
U.S. officials said intelligence reports from the Balkans have identified a support structure for several terrorist groups, including al Qaeda, among the Muslim communities in Albania and in the former Yugoslavia, including Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo and Macedonia.
“When it comes to extremists, we’re talking about very, very small pockets in Albania, as well as among the ethnic Albanian populations in Kosovo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia and other parts of the Balkans,” said one official with access to intelligence reports.
The official pointed out that the Albanian government has been supportive of U.S. efforts to counter Islamic terrorist activities, including curbing logistics and financial aid, and working to prevent terrorists from receiving training and weapons.
But a Congressional Research Service report produced in 2005 said instability in Albania during the 1990s gave al Qaeda a “foothold” there.
“Poor internal security, lax border controls, and high rates of crime produced an environment conducive to terrorist activity,” said the report by CRS specialist Steven Woehrel. “Some foreign Islamic extremists used Albania as a safe haven and gained Albanian citizenship.”
Balkan Muslims also have been targets of al Qaeda recruitment efforts because they have an easier time blending in or evading U.S. and European security measures and border controls, which often are geared to identifying Middle Eastern extremists.
The State Department’s latest annual report on international terrorism said the Albanian government has taken steps to stop terrorism financing but noted that “government and police forces faced substantial challenges to fully enforce border security and combat organized crime and corruption.”
The Albanian government identified seven financial holdings by terrorist groups last year that were frozen.
Israeli government sources have said that agents for the Palestinian militant group Hamas, as well as the Shi’ite Hezbollah, have been actively buying weapons from organized-crime groups in the Balkans.
Bosnia also has a large Muslim community that in the past has provided a base of support for al Qaeda and other terrorists. After the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords, most Islamic radicals, who were helping Bosnia’s Muslims fend off the Orthodox Christian Serbs, left the Balkans, but some remained behind.
“It is estimated that several hundred former fighters stayed behind in Bosnia after the war and became Bosnian citizens by marrying Bosnian women,”
the CRS report said. “Some al Qaeda operatives in Bosnia reportedly had connections to members of Bosnia’s intelligence service.”
European intelligence agencies estimate that as many as 750 Muslim former fighters remain hidden in Bosnia and have acted as a supply network to send guns, money and documents to terrorists passing through the region.
Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and other al Qaeda leaders often mention Bosnia as an important example of jihad, or holy war.
“Terrorist recruiting videos often include footage of combat in Bosnia,” the CRS report said.
According to the Associated Press, a joint U.S.-Croatian intelligence report produced last year stated that Algerian extremists were active in the Balkans. Bosnia’s intelligence service last year published information on 15 extremists living in that country: eight Algerians, two Syrians, two Tunisians and an Egyptian, Kuwaiti and Yemeni.
Officials also said the nongovernmental organization Revival of Islamic Heritage Society remains active in the region and spreads the radical Wahhabi form of Islam that animates al Qaeda.
ADN KRONOS INTERNATIONAL (ITALY)
Belgrade, 9 May (AKI) - The arrest of four ethnic Albanians, a Jordanian and a Turk in the United States on Tuesday on suspicion of planning a terrorist attack at the United States army base in Fort Dix, New Jersey, confirms the existence of a “white Al-Qaeda”, Balkan terrorism expert Darko Trifunovic told Adnkronos International (AKI) on Wednesday. Trifunovic said the arrests showed “white Al-Qaeda at work.” He compared the Fort Dix plot to a February attack in Salt Lake City when a Bosnian Muslim youth, Sulejman Talovic went on a shopping mall shooting rampage. Six people including Talovic were killed another four were injured in the attack.
Trifunovic, a professor at Belgrade University’s Faculty of Security Studies, was the first to develop a theory of “white Al-Qaeda”, which he said was introduced to the Balkans during 1992-1995 civil war in Bosnia when thousands of ‘mujahadeen’ from Islamic countries came to fight on the side of local Muslims. Many mujahadeen have remained in the country, and are believed to been indoctrinating local youths with radical Islam and even operating terrorist training camps, Trifunovic said, quoting western and Balkans intelligence sources.
Al-Qaeda has adopted a new tactics of using white European youths for terrorist attacks, “because of their non-Arabic appearance,” Trifunovic told
AKI. “The strategy is to indoctrinate or poison the hearts and minds of youngsters to psyche them up for the future terror operations,” Trifunovic said.
“And that is exactly what is now happening in the United States,” he added.
The US authorities arrested three ethnic Albanian brothers from Serbia’s breakaway Kosovo province, Sain, Elvir and Dritan Duka, another ethnic Albanian, Agron Abdulahu, a Jordanian, Mohamad Ibrahim Shnewer, and Serdar Tatar, a Turk.
Michael Drewniak, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s office in Newark, New Jersey, said the suspects “were planning an attack on Fort Dix in which they would kill as many soldiers as possible”. Drewniak described the group as “Islamist militants from the former Yugoslavia and the Middle East,” who apparently had no ties to international terrorist organisations, but were organised on a local level.
Several of the suspects said they were ready to kill and die ‘‘in the name of Allah,’’ according to court papers. The defendants, all men in their 20s, reportedly include a pizza deliveryman suspected of using his job to scout out Fort Dix, three builders and taxi-driver. They were arrested while trying to buy AK-47 assault weapons and M-16s from an informant, authorities said.
Many Balkan terrorism experts have been warning for years that Al-Qaeda had active cells in Muslim-majority Kosovo and a training camp in the village of Ropotovo. Kosovo has been under United Nations control 1999, when NATO airstrikes drove Serbian forces out of the province amid ethnic fighting and allegations of gross human rights abuses.
International officials have ignored the warnings and minimised the danger Al-Qaeda poses, according to Balkan analysts.
In a joint NATO-Bulgarian report in March 2005, the head of Bulgarian state security Kirco Kirov cited Kosovo as a “direct source of regional instability and a hub for international terrorism.” The report called for joint action by all European countries.
The US authorities said that Abdulahu was a sharp shooter in the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) before fleeing to the US. Fort Dix is a training ground for American soldiers and reservists before they are sent to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan, but in 1999 it served as a shelter for thousands of ethnic Albanian refugees from Kosovo.
Serb immigrants’ web sites noted that US officials carefully avoided identifying the four ethnic Albanians as such, calling them only “Islamic militants from former Yugoslavia.” A commentator on the SerbBlog said that Washington, which backs independence for Kosovo, is embarrassed by the discovery of the Fort Dix plot, “because the truth might mess up the PR for Kosovo Albanians getting to rip off a piece of Serbia to create their own country - a move that has the full support of the US State Department.”
Belgrade military analyst Zoran Dragisic said the Fort Dix plot “once again shows that Islamist terrorism is highly organised - from Kosovo to America - and the US intelligence services know this very well.” Dragsic expressed doubt, however, that the latest incident would change the American stance on Kosovo, “because Washington doesn’t change its positions easily.”
3 in Dix plot from pro-U.S. Balkans area
May 9, 2007 By GARENTINA KRAJA and WILLIAM J. KOLE,
Associated Press Writers
Three Muslim brothers who allegedly helped plot to kill soldiers at a U.S. Army base have roots in one of Europe’s most pro-American corners - a region that remains grateful to the United States for ending the Kosovo war.
Dritan Duka, 28, Shain Duka, 26, and Eljvir Duka, 23, who were arrested in New Jersey this week in what U.S. authorities said was a bungled scheme to blow up and gun down soldiers at Fort Dix, were born in Debar, a remote town on Macedonia’s rugged border with Albania.
Relatives in the ethnic Albanian-populated town of 15,000 said they had not seen the brothers in more than two decades, but expressed disbelief Wednesday that the three would attack the United States.
“We all have been supporters of America. We were always thankful to America for its support during the wars in Kosovo and Macedonia,” a cousin, Elez Duka, 29, told The Associated Press.
“These are simple, ordinary people and they’ve got nothing to do with terrorism. I expect their release and I expect an apology,” he said, waving his hands. “I see injustice. These are ridiculous charges.”
His indignation captured the mood among Muslims in Kosovo, Macedonia and Albania - places that have repeatedly expressed gratitude to the United States for intervening in the 1998-99 Kosovo war and a 2001 ethnic conflict that pushed Macedonia to the brink of civil war.
Albania was among the first countries to answer Washington’s call for troops to help support U.S.-led military offensives in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, which many expect to gain independence from Serbia later this year, U.S. flags are commonplace. The main avenue is Bill Clinton Boulevard, renamed to honor the president who ordered airstrikes that halted former Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic’s brutal crackdown in the province.
Like many Europeans, ethnic Albanians staged a big demonstration after the U.S. led the invasion of Iraq in 2003, but theirs was a pro-America rally, not an anti-war protest.
In and out of Debar, people struggled to reconcile those feelings with the indictment of the three brothers and a fourth ethnic Albanian suspect, Agron Abdullahu, 24. Two other men also were arrested: Mohamad Ibrahim Shnewer, 22, a Palestinian born in Jordan, and Serdar Tatar, 23, born in Turkey.
It was unclear whether Abdullahu also came from Debar, but U.S. authorities said he served as a sniper during the Kosovo war, which pitted ethnic Albanian separatists against Serbian troops loyal to Milosevic.
U.S. authorities have not given details of the alleged plot, or said if a date had been set for an attack. They said only that the accused were training and buying weapons.
Kosovo Prime Minister Agim Ceku wrote a letter to the U.S. mission in Pristina on Wednesday expressing the “extraordinary feeling that Kosovo’s people have for the U.S.” Ceku also denounced what he called “the disgusting idea” that Albanians could be involved in an attack “against a nation that has been very generous so far.”
The Duka brothers’ grandmother, Naze Duka, was visibly upset as word of their arrests spread through the modest two-story brick houses in Debar, about 110 miles southwest of the Macedonian capital, Skopje.
“America is good - you work, you earn money there,” the 88-year-old said. “I have no idea where this all came from. How did this happen?”
“I don’t believe that my kids would do anything like that. I know my kids - they were committed to supporting their families, their house,” she added.
Elez Duka, the brothers’ cousin, said their father took the family to the U.S. via Italy in 1986 or 1987.
American officials say the brothers were in the U.S. illegally. The cousin said they had not been back because they didn’t have the necessary papers for returning to the U.S.
He said the brothers occasionally phoned. Over the past two years, Elez Duka said, his cousins told him they had grown long beards and had become more devoted to Islam, but he insisted they were incapable of involvement in a terrorist plot.
“They live in America and grew up in the American culture. How can you say they are anti-American? These accusations are totally unfounded,” he said.
Few ethnic Albanians embrace militant Islam. Most are moderate or secular.
Even those in Debar who described themselves as devout Muslims denounced the Fort Dix plot.
“They must have been crazy. They shouldn’t dare throw a stone at America,”
said Rrahmi Duka, 70, a distant relative of the brothers, as a loudspeaker blared Muslim prayers in Debar’s main square.
“Who saved us? America,” he said. “We are in America’s hands.”
Feds say terror attack was at hand
By DAVID PORTER, Associated Press Writer
May 9, 2007
Federal authorities said Wednesday that a group of Muslim men suspected of plotting to massacre U.S. soldiers at Fort Dix were on the verge of carrying out their plan when they were arrested this week.
“I think they were in the last stage of planning,” U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie said. "They had training, they had maps, and I think they were very close to moving on this.
“Our view was they had pretty much gotten to concluding the planning phase of this and were looking to obtain heavy weaponry - and if not from us, they were going to try to obtain it elsewhere.”
Though it was not clear when the alleged attack was to take place, members of the group were arrested Monday night in Cherry Hill as they tried to buy
AK-47 assault weapons, M-16s and other weapons from an FBI informant, authorities said.
The men - four born in the former Yugoslavia, one from Jordan and one from Turkey - lived in Philadelphia and its suburbs with their immediate and extended families. Three were roofers, one drove a cab, and the two others worked at food stores.
The six - Mohamad Ibrahim Shnewer, 22; Dritan “Anthony” or “Tony” Duka, 28; Shain Duka, 26; Eljvir “Elvis” Duka, 23; Serdar Tatar, 23; and Agron Abdullahu, 24 - were ordered held without bail. Three were in the United States illegally; two had green cards allowing them to stay in this country permanently; and the sixth is a U.S. citizen.
Abdullahu was familiar with Fort Dix because it was the first place he landed when arriving in the United States as a refugee from Kosovo, according to a law enforcement officials who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
The United States allowed thousands of refugees into the United States after it intervened in the 1998-99 Kosovo war. Abdullahu arrived at Fort Dix as a teenager in 1999 as part of a group of about 4,400 refugees from Kosovo, officials said.
The investigation began more than a year ago after a New Jersey store clerk was asked to transfer a videotape onto a DVD. The tape showed 10 men shooting weapons at a firing range and calling for jihad, prosecutors said.
The 10 included the six men under arrest, authorities said.
Christie would not comment on the identities of the four other men in the video or say whether they were considered suspects. But he said the investigation was still going on.
One of the defendants, Tatar, worked at his father’s pizzeria and made deliveries to the base, using the opportunity to scout out Fort Dix for an attack, authorities said.
In an interview with the AP on Wednesday, Tatar’s father, Muslim Tatar, 54, denied that his son had made deliveries to Fort Dix. However, Christie said the younger Tatar spoke of delivering pizzas on the tapes made by informants.
Top US diplomat says UN Security Council to act soon on independence for Kosovo
Associated Press: Wednesday, May 09, 2007 2:01 PM
BERLIN-An upcoming UN Security Council resolution that paves the way for Kosovo to achieve independence from Serbia will include a Russian proposal aimed at helping the remaining Serb population in the province, a top U.S.
diplomat said Wednesday.
Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said the resolution had strong backing from the United States and a majority of the members of the Security Council. It would give Kosovo what amounts to limited, supervised independence, to be followed by formal recognition of its independence by other countries.
“We think there is now majority support in the Security Council for that plan, in fact, very strong support for that plan,” Burns told journalists at the U.S. Embassy in Berlin.
He said the US and other members would “put forward a resolution in the coming days that will lead, we hope, to a vote this month and to the independence of Kosovo.”
Kosovo has been under U.N. supervision since a 1999 NATO-led air war that halted a Serbian government crackdown on ethnic Albanian rebels. The Albanian majority demands independence, which Serbia opposes, backed by Moscow, which objects to imposing a solution over Serbia’s objections.
There has been speculation that Moscow may exercise its Security Council veto to block the proposal.
Burns said the text of the resolution sought to address Moscow’s objections by calling for safeguards for the remaining Serbian population, and by setting up an international envoy whose job would be to encourage the return of Serbs who have fled to return.
He said the resolution was “the best way to assure the majority population, the 95 percent of the population that are Kosovo Albanian, that we recognize that they have made the necessary reforms over the last eight years… that would merit them becoming an independent state with an independent government.”
Burns said the Security Council lacked authority to declare Kosovo independent outright, but that the resolution would pave the way for other countries to recognize the Kosovo government one by one.
The resolution would ask the EU to take over a lead role in civil administration and implementing reforms such as protection of minority rights while NATO provides border and internal security.
Some 200,000 Serbs and other minorities fled during a period of revenge attacks by ethnic Albanians that followed the crackdown by Serb forces. Only a small number of Serbs have returned since then, and many of them have faced hostility and attacks.