KOSOVSKA MITROVICA - B92/AP are reporting armed members of the para-military Albanian group, the Albanian National Army (ANA) are openly patrolling towns in northern Kosovo on the Serbia border in open defiance of the international community that has labeled them a terrorist group. They were formed in 2001 and have admitted conducting attacks in both Serbia and Macedonia. The unit has made no secret of not only wanting Kosovo independence, but they demand all Albanian communities in the region should be within the same national boundary, a Greater Albania, which would mean Serbia, Greece, Montenegro, Macedonia and perhaps Bulgaria would lose territory.

For the present the ANA are concentrating on confronting Serbian para-military groups, like the Guard of the Czar Lazar in northern Kosovo. Their leaders have stated, including the one interviewed, they don’t see the NATO forces or the UN as their enemy only Serbian authority and their patrols in northern Kosovo are intended to prevent any Serbian troops from entering the province. Northern Kosovo is majority Serbian and their organization the Serb National Council (SNV) have stated the ANA conducted a meeting in the village of Kos to plan an attack on the northern Kosovo city of Kosovska Mitrovica where the SNV is based. The SNV state local authorities also knew of the meeting and they expect the NATO-KFOR units to protect them, but NATO is not eager for any major outbreak of violence so I suspect the Serbs in the province will welcome the Guard of the Czar Lazar and expect Serbian troops to follow, which would set off the next chain reaction war in the region.

I would not be surprised if NATO attempts to first assume the posture of spectator as London-Washington have been doing in Iraq concerning the sectarian violence between Sunni/Shia, but Belgrade has publicly been more critical of NATO than of Albanian groups, giving the impression if Brussels was not involved a solution could be made between Serbs and Albanians. According to the Pristina based paper Express the ANA have over 12,000 members from a cross section of Albanian Kosovo society and new members are joining daily. In the meantime Belgrade has heavily re-armed since 1999 the year of Brussels’ 78 day bombing campaign and the beginning of NATO’s occupation with 16,000 troops. Serbia has re-equipped with the assistance of Moscow and Teheran signed a security agreement with Belgrade in January 2006.

Teheran intends the fighting to not only occupy the West’s attention away from Iran’s nuclear weapons program and keep the West on the defensive, but the next war will also be used to silence Vienna where the UN agency is based that has been investigating Iran’s nuclear production.

Srinagar - WebIndia123 is reporting a senior Islamic leader in Kashmir, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Chairman of the Hurriyat Conference, stated Indian troops are causing “massive and irrecoverable damage” to the economy of Jammu-Kashmir in a “well-planned” manner. Geelani continued by stating Indian security units are also, in a “particular defence” policy, destroying the forests of Kashmir by setting the jungles on fire. This sounds very similar to a scorched-earth policy where a military, if it can’t hold an area, is ordered to destroy anything above the surface in order to render the land useless to the enemy invader, in this case Islamic groups supported by Teheran-Islamabad. Delhi may realize, due to the massive strategic-military support Islamabad has been receiving from Teheran-Beijing, that Pakistan is therefore headed for its best war since Pakistan/India became independent in 1947, therefore if Pakistan can conquer Jammu-Kashmir it will be a wasteland.

Banja Luka - BIRN is reporting 1,000 kilograms (2,200 lbs) of radioactive material, stored in lead containers, have vanished from a hospital basement in Banja Luka, capital of Republika Srpska. A police official is quoted as saying the material can be used by terrorists to construct a dirty bomb, a weapon which combines both radioactive and conventional explosives. The explosive force of such a bomb is not large but it can distribute radioactive material over a wide area. This will not be sold for scrap as the Health Minister claims. I suspect it is enroute to facilities in the immediate area for Islamic groups that can use them for radioactive bombs.

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