Kosovo armed groups said stationed in troubled Macedonian village
BBC Monitoring Europe - Political - July 14, 2005, Thursday

Text of report by Nenad Mircevski entitled "Kosovars stay alert in Kondovo" published by the Macedonian newspaper Dnevnik on 14 July

Two Kosovo armed groups in civilian clothes have recently arrived in the area of the Skopje villages of Kondovo and Radusa, security sources have told Dnevnik . One of the groups is stationed in Kondovo, where it has joined Agim Krasniqi's group, whereas the other group is located in a deserted mine near the village of Radusa.

The 30-member Kosovo group in Kondovo is reportedly led by a certain Commander Fadil and it apparently includes the recently escaped convict Ramadan Shiti.

Krasniqi's group and the Kosovars apparently possess a large amount of weapons. In addition to the standard infantry armament, that is, guns, automatic rifles, and sniper guns, it also has handheld mortars, bombs, and a 14.5mm-caliber Gulinov machine gun of Russian origin. The ONA [National Liberation Army, NLA - UCK in Albanian] had such a machine gun during the 2001 armed conflict, but it was not returned during the arms collection operation, called Essential Harvest.

Agim Krasniqi openly admits that his group has weapons and that it may procure new weapons at any time. He has also confirmed that he has friends in Kosovo, who are always at his disposal.

"We have plenty of arms and I am not hiding it. These are the arms that we had before. There are no members of the Kosovo Protection Corps in our group. There are only some Kosovars who are our friends from the war, our comrades-in-arms in 2001, who must help us. The rest are from the village," Krasniqi said at a recent meeting with reporters.

The second armed group from Kosovo has been located in an abandoned mine in the vicinity of the village of Radusa for one week now. Kosovars Sami Ukshini and Emrush Sumi, also known as the Prizren mullah, allegedly lead this group.

In a statement that Prime Minister Vlado Buckovski made during his visit to the Tetovo village in Vratnica two days ago, he confirmed that there were extremist groups in the country, which may cause incidents.

"We may expect some of the extremist groups in Macedonia and beyond, I am talking about the Kosovo groups, to be more anxious than usual, because the implementation of the Framework Agreement paves Macedonia's unilateral [as published] character. On the other hand, dissatisfied Kosovars are expanding the scope of their operations, so they will try to attribute greater importance to the negotiations on the [Kosovo's] future status, scheduled for October," Macedonian Prime Minister Buckovski stated.

Two days ago and yesterday afternoon a convoy of troop carriers, whose final destination was unknown, were seen twice in the municipality of Gjorce Petrov. The presence of armoured vehicles has stirred up speculation about the imminent resolution of the Kondovo crisis.

[Box] MVR does not comment

The MVR [Macedonian Interior Ministry] says that it does not comment on operative information.

"The MVR's view is that it should never comment on the operative data that it has until it has a concrete result of the implemented activities of which the public will be duly informed," MVR officials said.

[Box] Anxiety in Vratnica

After the shelling and attack with automatic guns on the Vratnica police station two days ago the situation in Vratnica and the surrounding area is peaceful.

However, the people are still upset. Many believe that the Tetovo-Jazince highway is not safe enough because there are no police checks.

"I ask that the police urgently solve the case of the attack on the police station and enforce security measures on the Tetovo-Jazince highway and the Orasje-Kondovo road. The envisioned removal of the watchtowers on the Kosovo border will not be good for our municipality's security. They should remain where they are, just as the Vratnica police station, and a new police station should be opened in Jegunovce," Jegunovce Municipality Mayor Toni Kocevski told us.

SOURCE: Dnevnik, Skopje, in Macedonian 14 Jul 05 pp1,4

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