The Albanian town of Burrel has been in the news recently as former ICTY chief prosecutor Carla del Ponte revealed in her new book that the KLA kidnapped Serbs and transported them to Burrel where they were dismembered them in a make-shift operating room so that their internal organs could be sold on the black market to raise funds for the KLA.

During the Kosovo war, the Albanian Army base in Burrel was the training facility of the KLA's "Atlantic Brigade" (a unit made-up of volunteers from Western Europe and the United States). The following article profiles one foreign-born KLA member who trained at the Burrel facility.

A French soldier of fortune fights alongside the KLA
Agence France Presse (English) - May 21, 1999 12:05 GMT

By: Jean-Luc Porte

TIRANA, May 21 (AFP) - "I was recruited as an officer in the KLA as soon as I showed pictures of the Serbs I had killed in Croatia," said 'Jacques', a far-right Frenchman, lying wounded on a hospital bed here, after three weeks of fighting in Kosovo.

"I arrived in Albania by boat, all by myself and without any connection, simply because I wanted to go on killing Serbs as I had done in Croatia and in Bosnia. I'm a diehard anti-communist," said the athletic 39-year-old skinhead, his body covered with tattoos.

As soon as he landed in the western port of Durres, the former marine went to the Drenica cafe, a recruitment centre for the ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).

From there he was transferred to the training camp of Burrel, 70 kilometres (40 miles) north-east of Tirana, which holds about 700 new recruits. "I was immediately appointed instructor of a special reconnaissance group. Ten days later, the KLA told me I was fit to start fighting in Kosovo," he said.

"At first I was part of a group including nine foreigners -- several Germans, a Lebanese, a Senegalese, a Spaniard and a Swiss. Our mission was to defend a position close to the frontline, eight kilometres inside Kosovo, a corridor through a valley encircled by the Serbs," 'Jacques' added.

But after a first night of intense bombardment by the Serb artillery, seven members of the group asked permission to leave. "They were scared to death, they were vomiting," he said.

On the other hand, "even if most of the Albanians, officers included, had never seen action before, they had brave hearts and were very motivated, despite the dire lack of weapons and adequate food," said 'Jacques'.

"Their old Kalashnikovs are coming apart while their missile launchers are outdated Russian gadgets," he explained.

The 20 or so fighters defending that particular position passed most of their days protecting themselves from the shelling, ducking snipers and avoiding the innumerable landmines.

The group also made some brief reconnaissance incursions into enemy territory. According to 'Jacques', Serb aircraft also bomb the KLA positions in this frontier sector of Kosare, overlooking the Djakovica region of southern Kosovo, using fragmentation bombs and toxic gas.

The Frenchman, who asked to remain anonymous while claiming his father was French President Jacques Chirac's chauffeur, said the KLA suffers severe losses as "the guys get less than two weeks' training".

In order to conceal the scope of the losses, the foreign fighters who are injured are not allowed to go back to their countries of origin, 'Jacques' claimed.

Many of them are wounded by landmines or shelling by the Serbs, "whose tactics have not changed since the war in Croatia", he said, showing off a tattoo on his right hand reading 'HOS'.

"HOS for Ustashis," the Nazis' Croatian allies during World War II, he said proudly.

On May 15 'Jacques' was injured by a fragment of mortar shell. "There were sparks everywhere. I could not feel my leg anymore and I was bleeding," he said.

Carried on a stretcher by his comrades along the rocky mountain roads, then put in a cross-country vehicle, he was admitted to hospital in the north-western town of Bajram Curri.

Then, given the serious condition he was in, he was flown by helicopter to the military hospital of Tirana.

Registered at the hospital under the name of Georges Hassani, he now hesitates between resuming fighting -- once he has recovered -- or going back to France, where former troubles with the police might catch up with him.

Even if he said he had received no pay for fighting in Kosovo, 'Jacques' praised the generosity of civilians who on several occasions offered him substantial sums in German mark notes.

"I was wounded the very day I was about to get a Winchester 308, a super rifle of great accuracy, excellent for sniping Serbs. This time I didn't have the chance to kill even one", he said regretfully.

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