Muslims attack Coptic Church and people

[Kollyvas]

http://www.emperors-clothes.com/1/rem.htm

• ''I think no power to your refrigerator, no gas to your stove, you can't get to work because the bridge is down - the bridge on which you held your rock concerts and you all stood with targets on your heads. That needs to disappear at three o'clock in the morning." (U.S. Air Force General Michael Short quoted in 'International Herald Tribune' 14 May 1999.)

Gen. Short was explaining the philosophy behind bombing civilian facilities including hospitals, homes and chemical factories, killing thousands of people in Yugoslavia. Short was in charge of NATO's three month air war. Many of NATO's bombs were encased in uranium.

---

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles8 ... -Clark.htm

• Another Kosovo lie exposed: NATO used doctored video to justify bombing of passenger train

World Socialist Website, January 8, 2000 (posted 10/14)

In the Frankfurter Rundschau of January 6 reporter Arnd Festerling documented how NATO used falsified video recordings to justify its conduct of the war in Kosovo.

At least 14 people died on April 12, 1999 when a US Airforce bomber fired on a railway bridge near the Serbian village of Grdenicka just as a passenger train was crossing the bridge. Following the initial strike of the train, the pilot returned to make a second sweep of the burning bridge and dropped a bomb on a carriage that had not been hit by the first assault.

At the time NATO described the bombing of the commuter train as a tragic accident. NATO's presentation of events, it now emerges, was based on doctored video recordings and misleading descriptions of what took place aboard the fighter plane.

One day after the strike, in an effort to demonstrate that the attack was a case of inadvertent “collateral damage”, General Wesley Clark, the Supreme Commander of NATO forces, called a press conference and showed two video films taken by cameras located in the noses of the remote control-guided bombs. According to Clark, the films made clear that the passenger train was approaching too fast for the pilot, who was concentrating on the difficult business of guiding the bombs, to react. The pilot had “less than a second” to abort the strike, Clark asserted. . . . (read more)

http://www.oilempire.us/clark.html

Clark, Others Sued for War Crimes In Yugoslavia
14.Sep.2003 15:16
William Blum, Rogue StateThe International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia
Some things you should know about it
Beginning about two weeks after the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia began in March, 1999, international-law professionals from Canada, the United Kingdom, Greece, and the American Association of Jurists began to file complaints with the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague, Netherlands, charging leaders of NATO countries and officials of NATO itself with crimes similar to those for which the Tribunal had issued indictments shortly before against Serbian leaders. Amongst the charges filed were: "grave violations of international humanitarian law", including "wilful killing, wilfully causing great suffering and serious injury to body and health, employment of poisonous weapons and other weapons to cause unnecessary suffering, wanton destruction of cities, towns and villages, unlawful attacks on civilian objects, devastation not necessitated by military objectives, attacks on undefended buildings and dwellings, destruction and wilful damage done to institutions dedicated to religion, charity and education, the arts and sciences."
The Canadian suit names 68 leaders, including William Clinton, Madeleine Albright, William Cohen, Tony Blair, Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien, and NATO officials Javier Solana, Wesley Clark, and Jamie Shea. The complaint also alleges "open violation" of the United Nations Charter, the NATO treaty itself, the Geneva Conventions, and the Principles of International Law Recognized by the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. The complaint was submitted along with a considerable amount of evidence to support the charges. The evidence makes the key point that it was NATO's bombing campaign which had given rise to the bulk of the deaths in Yugoslavia, provoked most of the Serbian atrocities, created an environmental disaster, and left a dangerous legacy of unexploded depleted uranium and cluster bombs.
In June, some of the complainants met in The Hague with the court's chief prosecutor, Louise Arbour of Canada. Although she cordially received their brief in person, along with three thick volumes of evidence documenting the alleged war crimes, nothing of substance came of the meeting, despite repeated follow-up submissions and letters by the plaintiffs. In November, her successor, Carla Del Ponte of Switzerland, also met with some of the complainants and received extensive evidence. The complainants' brief in November pointed out that the prosecution of those named by them was "not only a requirement of law, it is a requirement of justice to the victims and of deterrence to powerful countries such as those in NATO who, in their military might and in their control over the media, are lacking in any other natural restraint such as might deter less powerful countries." Charging the war's victors, not only its losers, it was argued, would be a watershed in international criminal law. In one of the letters to Arbour, Michael Mandel, a professor of law in Toronto and the initiator of the Canadian suit, added:
«Unfortunately, as you know, many doubts have already been raised about the impartiality of your Tribunal. In the early days of the conflict, after a formal and, in our view, justified complaint against NATO leaders had been laid before it by members of the Faculty of Law of Belgrade University, you appeared at a press conference with one of the accused, British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook, who made a great show of handing you a dossier of Serbian war crimes. In early May, you appeared at another press conference with US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, by that time herself the subject of two formal complaints of war crimes over the targeting of civilians in Yugoslavia. Albright publicly announced at that time that the US was the major provider of funds for the Tribunal and that it had pledged even more money to it.»{1}
Arbour herself made little attempt to hide the pro-NATO bias she wore beneath her robe. She trusted NATO to be its own police, judge, jury, and prison guard. In a year in which the arrest of General Pinochet was giving an inspiring lift to the cause of international law and international justice, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, under Arbour's leadership, ruled that for the Great Powers it would be business as usual, particularly the Great Power that was most vulnerable to prosecution, and which, coincidentally, paid most of her salary. Here are her own words:
«I am obviously not commenting on any allegations of violations of international humanitarian law supposedly perpetrated by nationals of NATO countries. I accept the assurances given by NATO leaders that they intend to conduct their operations in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in full compliance with international humanitarian law. I have reminded many of them, when the occasion presented itself, of their obligation to conduct fair and open-minded investigations of any possible deviance from that policy, and of the obligation of commanders to prevent and punish, if required.»{2}
NATO Press Briefing, May 16, 1999: Question: Does NATO recognize Judge Arbour's jurisdiction over their activities? Jamie Shea: I think we have to distinguish between the theoretical and the practical. I believe that when Justice Arbour starts her investigation [of the Serbs], she will because we will allow her to. ... NATO countries are those that have provided the finance to set up the Tribunal, we are amongst the majority financiers.
The Tribunal -- created in 1993, with the US as the father, the Security Council as the mother, and Madeleine Albright as the midwife -- also relies on the military assets of the NATO powers to track down and arrest the suspects it tries for war crimes. There appeared to be no more happening with the complaint under Del Ponte than under Arbour, but in late December, in an interview with The Observer of London, Del Ponte was asked if she was prepared to press charges against NATO personnel. She replied: "If I am not willing to do that, I am not in the right place. I must give up my mission." The Tribunal then announced that it had completed a study of possible NATO crimes, which Del Ponte was examining, and that the study was an appropriate response to public concerns about NATO's tactics. "It is very important for this tribunal to assert its authority over any and all authorities to the armed conflict within the former Yugoslavia."
Was this a sign from heaven that the new millennium was going to be one of more equal justice? Could this really be? No, it couldn't. From official quarters, military and civilian, of the United States and Canada, came disbelief, shock, anger, denials ... "appalling" ... "unjustified". Del Ponte got the message. Four days after The Observer interview appeared, her office issued a statement: "NATO is not under investigation by the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. There is no formal inquiry into the actions of NATO during the conflict in Kosovo."{3} And there wouldn't be, it was unnecessary to add. But the claim against NATO -- heretofore largely ignored by the American media -- was now out in the open. It was suddenly receiving a fair amount of publicity, and supporters of the bombing were put on the defensive. The most common argument made in NATO's defense, and against war-crime charges, has been that the death and devastation inflicted upon the civilian sector was "accidental". This claim, however, must be questioned in light of certain reports. For example, the commander of NATO's air war, Lt. Gen. Michael Short, declared at one point:
«If you wake up in the morning and you have no power to your house and no gas to your stove and the bridge you take to work is down and will be lying in the Danube for the next 20 years, I think you begin to ask, "Hey, Slobo, what's this all about? How much more of this do we have to withstand?"»{4}
General Short, said the New York Times, "hopes that the distress of the Yugoslav public will undermine support for the authorities in Belgrade."{5} At one point, NATO spokesman Jamie Shea added: "If President Milosevic really wants all of his population to have water and electricity all he has to do is accept NATO's five conditions and we will stop this campaign."{6} After the April NATO bombing of a Belgrade office building -- which housed political parties, TV and radio stations, 100 private companies, and more -- the Washington Post reported:
«Over the past few days, U.S. officials have been quoted as expressing the hope that members of Serbia's economic elite will begin to turn against Milosevic once they understand how much they are likely to lose by continuing to resist NATO demands.»{7}
Before missiles were fired into this building, NATO planners spelled out the risks: "Casualty Estimate 50-100 Government/Party employees. Unintended Civ Casualty Est: 250 -- Apts in expected blast radius."{8} The planners were saying that about 250 civilians living in nearby apartment buildings might be killed in the bombing. What do we have here? We have grown men telling each other: We'll do A, and we think that B may well be the result. But even if B does in fact result, we're saying beforehand -- as we'll insist afterward -- that it was unintended.
Following World War II there was an urgent need for a permanent international criminal court to prosecute those accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide, but the Cold War intervened. Finally, in 1998 in Rome, the nations of the world drafted the charter of The International Criminal Court. American negotiators, however, insisted on provisions in the charter that would, in essence, give the United States veto power over any prosecution through its seat on the Security Council. The American request was rejected, and primarily for this reason the US refused to join 120 other nations who supported the charter. The ICC is an instrument Washington can't control sufficiently to keep it from prosecuting American military and government officials. Senior US officials have explicitly admitted that this danger is the reason for their aversion to the proposed new court.{9} But this is clearly not the case with the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. It's Washington's kind of international court, a court for the New World Order.
NOTES

1. This and most of the other material concerning the complaint to the Tribunal mentioned here were transmitted to the author by Mandel and other complainants.
2. Press Release from Chief Prosecutor Louise Arbour, The Hague, May 13, 1999.
3. The Observer (London), December 26, 1999; Washington Times, December 30 and 31, 1999; New York Times, December 30, 1999
4. Washington Post, May 24, 1999, p.1
5. New York Times, May 13, 1999, p.1
6. NATO press conference, Brussels, May 25, 1999
7. Washington Post, April 22, 1999, p.18
8. Ibid., September 20, 1999, p.1
9. New York Times, December 2, 1998, p.1; January 3, 2000
   The above is excerpted from "Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower" by William Blum
   http://members.aol.com/superogue/ http://www.ptb.be/international/article ... ct_id=5494

Clark Worked With Terrorist Organazation KLA
14.Sep.2003 16:10
Excerpt from ZpubFor those in the audience who did not have a flier, I began to explain the picture which showed General Clark in a congratulatory handshake with Hashim Thaci, leader of the KLA, which under the noses of KFOR had murdered or ethnically cleansed thousands of Kosovo Serbs and had destroyed more Orthodox Christian churches and monasteries than were destroyed in 500 years under the Ottoman Empire. Next to Thaci was Bernard Kouchner, Chief U.N. administrator in Kosovo, British General Sir Michael Jackson, and Agim Ceku, who commanded the Croatian Army in "Operation Storm" that ethnically cleansed 250,000 Serbs from Krajina and murdered thousands and who now commands the Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC), the thinly disguised successor to the KLA. It should be noted that the KLA, with whom we allied ourselves, at one time was designated by the U.S. State Department as a terrorist organization. Of course, this is the same KLA about whom Senator Joe Lieberman said: "The United States of America and the Kosovo Liberation Army stand for the same values and principles . . . Fighting for the KLA is fighting for human rights and American values." (Washington Post, Apr.28, 1999). Clark at Borders bookstore, Pentagon Center Mall, 17 Jul 2001 by Colonel George Jatras, USAF (Ret.) http://www.zpub.com/un/clark.html
Clark (right) shakes hands with KLA terrorist Hashim Thaci (left)

Tony Blair (left) shakes hands with KLA terrorist Hashim Thaci (right)

Madeleine Albright (left) shakes hands with KLA terrorist Hashim Thaci (right)

[Kollyvas]

http://www.lewrockwell.com/spectator/spec143.html

How we trained al-Qa’eda
Brendan O’Neill says the Bosnian war taught Islamic terrorists to operate abroad For all the millions of words written about al-Qa’eda since the 9/11 attacks two years ago, one phenomenon is consistently overlooked — the role of the Bosnian war in transforming the mujahedin of the 1980s into the roving Islamic terrorists of today.

Many writers and reporters have traced al-Qa’eda and other terror groups’ origins back to the Afghan war of 1979–1992, that last gasp of the Cold War when US-backed mujahedin forces fought against the invading Soviet army. It is well documented that America played a major role in creating and sustaining the mujahedin, which included Osama bin Laden’s Office of Services set up to recruit volunteers from overseas. Between 1985 and 1992, US officials estimate that 12,500 foreign fighters were trained in bomb-making, sabotage and guerrilla warfare tactics in Afghan camps that the CIA helped to set up.

Yet America’s role in backing the mujahedin a second time in the early and mid-1990s is seldom mentioned — largely because very few people know about it, and those who do find it prudent to pretend that it never happened. Following the Russian withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989 and the collapse of their puppet regime in 1992, the Afghan mujahedin became less important to the United States; many Arabs, in the words of the journalist James Buchan, were left stranded in Afghanistan ‘with a taste for fighting but no cause’. It was not long before some were provided with a new cause. From 1992 to 1995, the Pentagon assisted with the movement of thousands of mujahedin and other Islamic elements from Central Asia into Europe, to fight alongside Bosnian Muslims against the Serbs.

The Bosnia venture appears to have been very important to the rise of mujahedin forces, to the emergence of today’s cross-border Islamic terrorists who think nothing of moving from state to state in the search of outlets for their jihadist mission. In moving to Bosnia, Islamic fighters were transported from the ghettos of Afghanistan and the Middle East into Europe; from an outdated battleground of the Cold War to the major world conflict of the day; from being yesterday’s men to fighting alongside the West’s favoured side in the clash of the Balkans. If Western intervention in Afghanistan created the mujahedin, Western intervention in Bosnia appears to have globalised it.

As part of the Dutch government’s inquiry into the Srebrenica massacre of July 1995, Professor Cees Wiebes of Amsterdam University compiled a report entitled ‘Intelligence and the War in Bosnia’, published in April 2002. In it he details the secret alliance between the Pentagon and radical Islamic groups from the Middle East, and their efforts to assist Bosnia’s Muslims. By 1993, there was a vast amount of weapons- smuggling through Croatia to the Muslims, organised by ‘clandestine agencies’ of the USA, Turkey and Iran, in association with a range of Islamic groups that included Afghan mujahedin and the pro-Iranian Hezbollah. Arms bought by Iran and Turkey with the financial backing of Saudi Arabia were airlifted from the Middle East to Bosnia — airlifts with which, Wiebes points out, the USA was ‘very closely involved’.

The Pentagon’s secret alliance with Islamic elements allowed mujahedin fighters to be ‘flown in’, though they were initially reserved as shock troops for particularly hazardous operations against Serb forces. According to a report in the Los Angeles Times in October 2001, from 1992 as many as 4,000 volunteers from the Middle East, North Africa and Europe, ‘known as the mujahedin’, arrived in Bosnia to fight with the Muslims. Richard Holbrooke, America’s former chief Balkans peace negotiator, has said that the Bosnian Muslims ‘wouldn’t have survived’ without the help of the mujahedin, though he later admitted that the arrival of the mujahedin was a ‘pact with the devil’ from which Bosnia is still recovering.

By the end of the 1990s State Department officials were increasingly worried about the consequences of this pact. Under the terms of the 1995 Dayton peace accord, the foreign mujahedin units were required to disband and leave the Balkans. Yet in 2000, the State Department raised concerns about the ‘hundreds of foreign Islamic extremists’ who became Bosnian citizens after fighting against the Serbs, and who pose a potential terror threat to Europe and the United States. US officials claimed that one of bin Laden’s top lieutenants had sent operatives to Bosnia, and that during the 1990s Bosnia had served as a ‘staging area and safe haven’ for al-Qa’eda and others. The Clinton administration had discovered that it is one thing to permit the movement of Islamic groups across territories; it is quite another to rein them back in again.

Indeed, for all the Clinton officials’ concern about Islamic extremists in the Balkans, they continued to allow the growth and movement of mujahedin forces in Europe through the 1990s. In the late 1990s, in the run-up to Clinton’s and Blair’s Kosovo war of 1999, the USA backed the Kosovo Liberation Army against Serbia. According to a report in the Jerusalem Post in 1998, KLA members, like the Bosnian Muslims before them, had been ‘provided with financial and military support from Islamic countries’, and had been ‘bolstered by hundreds of Iranian fighters or mujahedin ...[some of whom] were trained in Osama bin Laden’s terrorist camps in Afghanistan’. It seems that, for all its handwringing, the USA just couldn’t break the pact with the devil.

Why is this aspect of the mujahedin’s development so often overlooked? Some sensible stuff has been written about al-Qa’eda and its connections in recent months, but the Bosnia connection has been left largely unexplored. In Jason Burke’s excellent Al-Qa’eda: Casting a Shadow of Terror, Bosnia is mentioned only in passing. Kimberley McCloud and Adam Dolnik of the Monterey Institute of International Studies have written some incisive commentary calling for rational thinking when assessing al-Qa’eda’s origins and threat — but again, investigation of the Bosnia link is notable by its absence.

It would appear that when it comes to Bosnia, many in the West have a moral blind spot. For some commentators, particularly liberal ones, Western intervention in Bosnia was a Good Thing — except that, apparently, there was too little of it, offered too late in the conflict. Many journalists and writers demanded intervention in Bosnia and Western support for the Muslims. In many ways, this was their war, where they played an active role in encouraging further intervention to enforce ‘peace’ among the former Yugoslavia’s warring factions. Consequently, they often overlook the downside to this intervention and its divisive impact on the Balkans. Western intervention in Bosnia, it would appear, has become an unquestionably positive thing, something that is beyond interrogation and debate.

Yet a cool analysis of today’s disparate Islamic terror groups, created in Afghanistan and emboldened by the Bosnian experience, would do much to shed some light on precisely the dangers of such intervention.

Brendan O’Neill is assistant editor of spiked-online.

http://www.oilempire.us/clark.html
Terrorism and Wesley Clark
17.Sep.2003 12:04
nessieWhat does terrorism mean?
Gen. Clark speaks in Berkeley Tuesday, Oct. 17th
Terrorism has long been a useful term for the state. But what does the term actually mean? This is a matter of some debate. "The state calls its own violence law," said Max Stirner, "but that of the individual crime." Within natural limits, the state does pretty much what its masters tell it to do. This is no reason for us to do what we are told to do. History has demonstrated conclusively the foolhardiness of accepting without question definitions told to us by others. So let's define terrorism ourselves, shall we?
This is not as simple as it looks. First of all, we must recognize that the most obvious dichotomy, state terrorism vs. private terrorism, doesn't tell all of the story. But let's deal with it first. The powers that be would all have us believe that private terrorism is terrorism and that state terrorism is not terrorism. This is simply untrue. The vast overwhelming majority of terrorist acts in all of human history has been the work of states.
When they take place during wartime, the perpetrators are called "war criminals" rather than "terrorists." There is a very sound reason that the powers that be teach us to reserve the term "terrorist" for practitioners of private terrorism alone. This Orwellian manipulation of language is a subtle form of mass mind control and must be resisted with great fervor.
We are warned with increasing frequency that, even though the Cold War has been over a decade, America must still gird her loins for war. "Rogue states," we are told, already present a serious terrorist threat. Soon, if we do not squander our funds on an unworkable and unnecessary neo-Star Wars type mythical umbrella of anti-missile protection, these so-called "rogue nations" will nuke (or worse) us from above. By every particular of our government's own definition of a "rogue state," America itself can be considered a rogue. It's just a big rogue and the others are little rogues, that's all. Every terrorist war crime of which they are accused, America is guilty, too, and in most cases more so by factors of 10.
Which brings us to the Yugoslav war. Bosnian Serb leader and army commander Ratko Mladic is an indicted war criminal. He is also not a very nice guy. He is, in fact, a ruthless, brutal thug. He is certainly no more brutal and ruthless than his Croat and Muslim counterparts, but that's beside the point. A thug is a thug is a thug. But that's not why he was indicted. He was indicted because his side failed to win the war. This is nothing new. Luftwaffe commander Herman Goering was indicted as a war criminal for the same reason. And for the same reason, Sir Arthur "Bomber" Harris was not indicted.
Politically, Mladic's role in the Yugoslavian civil war was no different than that of any West Virginian militia commander in America's own civil war. When Virginia broke away from the United States, West Virginia broke away from Virginia and stayed in the Union. They won. No West Virginia militia commander was ever indicted for any war crimes his troops may or may not have committed.
When Bosnia broke away from Yugoslavia, the Republic of Serbska broke away from Bosnia. They lost. Now Mladic is a wanted man. This is not to say that he is not also a war criminal. Far from it. This is only to say that, as Clauswitz pointed out over a century ago, war is politics by other means. This is the nature of politics. Winners write the history. Losers have no choice. Don't believe for one moment that America's own civil war was not fought with ruthless brutality by both sides. By historical standards as well as by the standards of the day, it was a particularly brutal war. Atrocities abounded. War without atrocities is impossible. War itself is an atrocity. All wars are fought with ruthless brutality by both sides. The only alternative is certain defeat. Victory, however, is never certain, not even to the most ruthless and brutal commanders.
Gen. Wesley Clark
Which brings us to Gen. Wesley Clark, commander of NATO during the bombing of Serbia. Except in the sense that all wars are civil, Clark did not fight in a civil war. Instead, he led an invading force of imperialist invaders in the cynical dismemberment of a sovereign nation so that the avaricious plutocrats who hold NATO's leash could feast on the corpse of its economy. Like both Goering and Harris before him, when Clark's military campaign stagnated he turned in his impotent rage to slaughtering civilians. Warriors kill other warriors. Cowards kill women and children. This despicable coward shames every American. Think Herman Goering, but this time with smarter bombs and bigger allies. That's Wesley Clark, terrorist, coward, and war criminal.
On Tuesday, Oct. 17, Clark will be speaking in, of all places, Berkeley. At 6 p.m., he will be at the Berkeley Community Theater. I can imagine few places outside of the Balkans where he is less welcome. His appearance will undoubtedly be met with vigorous protest. Terrorist war criminals are not to be tolerated in our midst, or else we share in the guilt. Make no mistake about it, this man is every bit as much a terrorist as is Osama Bin Laden. If anything, he's worse. His body count is certainly higher.
The temptation will surely arise among some to give him a taste of his own medicine, to meet terror with terror. This would be a public relations disaster for all who wish to see justice prevail. If, while on its way to the Community Theater, Clark's car succumbed to an Irish-style culvert bomb or a Georgian-style rocket-propelled grenade attack, the media would paint Clark as a fallen hero and his killers as brutal terrorists. No matter how richly he deserves to be blown to goo, preferably by one of his own bombs, it would be supremely counter-productive to make of this fiend a martyr. I recommend strongly against it.
Certain individuals, who shall remain nameless, told me that some demonstrators will be bringing hangmen's nooses to the anti-Clark demo. They encouraged others to do the same. While I must admit that waving them around would make for some superior street theater, actually lynching the guy is a bad idea because justice would not be served. Hanging is too good for a guy like Clark. I'd rather see him spend his life at hard labor, undoing by hand the damage his war crimes have wrought.
I recommend strongly against terrorism in general. My objection is not based on any moral objections. Far from it. Terrorism is, if anything, the least inhumane form of warfare possible, if only because it affects the least number of people. I eschew terrorism because warfare, even the least inhumane warfare possible, simply cannot create the world I want to live in. It will take simultaneous mass grassroots organizing on a planet wide scale to even come close to what I, and those like me, seek to achieve. There are no shortcuts, violent or otherwise.
Organizing on such a scale used to not be technologically possible. In the '60s, there was a planetwide mass uprising of youth. The whole world was engulfed. But we couldn't communicate with each other. We couldn't coordinate our actions. This is no longer true. The Internet has made instantaneous worldwide communication so cheap and easy that it is no longer the sole purview of the privileged few and the corporate-government complex. This quantum leap in technology has borne heady political fruit. 2000 was, as the current saying goes, "The year everything changed." If the anti-IMF/WB/WTO/NAFTA/GATT forces keep up this momentum and if current trends continue, the NWO will soon have to quit slathering its fangs and start licking its wounds.
If this comes to pass, it will be mainly the work of anarchists. Both the left and the right, each in its own way, talk a good anti-NWO game, at least when they're not blaming each other for its very existence. But it is the anarchists who take to the streets and stalk this monster in its very lair.
Demonstrations against the de facto world government held in Prague on Sept. 26 ("S26") were accorded barely 15 seconds on America's corporate TV news. What was suppressed outright was that scores of simultaneous coordinated demonstrations were held in solidarity with the action in Prague on every continent except Antarctica. The Internet made this possible. If we'd had the Internet in the '60s, you would be living in a much different world today.
"Reclaim the Streets" in Berkeley
One such solidarity demo was held in Berkeley. It was called "Reclaim the Streets." I was there. That's where I heard about Gen. Clark's impending arrival. The demo was, in many ways, a typical Berkeley demo, loud but indecisive. There were, however, a couple of interesting tactical innovations on the part of the demonstrators. People met up at the downtown BART station. As the march began, it headed straight for City Hall and the new jail. Both were conspicuously defended. At the last possible minute marchers swung north. Then a certain individual, who will remain nameless, began passing out torches. Yes, torches. It's been quite a while since the last time a mob carrying torches headed up Berkeley's main drag. Yet that's exactly what happened when the marchers rounded the next corner. It didn't accomplish a whole hell of a lot but it sure was a glorious sight. Predictably, it was not shown even on local news, let alone on the corporate networks.
They weren't the greatest possible torches. They were two foot-long pieces of 1 inch-by-1 inch scrap lumber, with one end wrapped in paraffin-soaked rags. The paraffin melted faster than it burned, so it ran down the sticks and got on people's hands. It didn't burn very long, either. Within a few blocks the torches had all guttered out.
Three foot-long 1.75-inch oak dowels with rags soaked in pitch would have been much more impressive, and would have lasted longer, too. And even when they’d burned out, they’d have made dandy weapons. But I guess nobody thought of that.
Or maybe they did.
And the guy who passed out the torches probably would have been wiser to mask up beforehand, too. But, hey, it’s not my place to criticize. I didn’t even bring any torches. All I brought was my press card and my notebook. That’s all I ever bring to these things. I’m not a rioter. Nor do I incite riots. I’m a journalist. I come only to observe. Besides, I’m too old to riot. It’d probably give me a heart attack or something.
The key intersection of Shattuck and Center was soon occupied. A 20-foot tall English Anti-Roads Campaign-style tripod was erected. A protester climbed to the top. These tripods are very effective demo props, even better than the now famous giant puppets. During the Battle of Seattle, one guy with a tripod single-handedly blockaded one intersection for hours. I couldn't help but wonder why the demonstrators in Berkeley deployed only one tripod. Simultaneous deployment of multiple tripods at key intersections around the city would have forced the police to scatter their forces. But I guess nobody thought of that, either.
Even so, people were able to take over this key intersection and hold an enthusiastic techno/hip-hop dance party right in the middle of it. This is called "creating a Temporary Autonomous Zone" ("TAZ" for short). Two portable sound systems, mounted on bicycle trailers, pounded out excellent beats. Soon the cheery glow of a bonfire had most people dancing around a pile of smashed-up newspaper vending boxes. Most newspapers make a better source of kindling than they do of information. After a good long while the cops moved in and drove people back with threatening gestures. They were firm but restrained. No doubt they had heard about the Czech policemen who had been set on fire by molotov cocktails earlier in the day and didn't want to provoke a similar fate for themselves. The protesters withdrew to the opposite side of the intersection and regrouped. They immediately built a second bonfire, even as a fire truck was moved in to foam the first bonfire out. Then the cops got a little pushier and captured the second bonfire.
Neither side really wanted to fight, so the crowd began to retreat, slowly at first, but always in good order. They immediately moved on through a second key intersection, University Avenue and Shattuck, kindling a series of small, symbolic fires in the street as they went, all the while chanting, "Whose streets? Our streets. Whose streets? Our streets," again and again. For the moment, at least, they were.
After nearly 40 years of ongoing confrontations, the cops and the demonstrators of Berkeley have developed a healthy respect for each other. A certain degree of detente has developed, and with it certain unspoken rules of engagement. Another theory holds that the city government is intimidated by demonstrators and keeps their cops on a very short leash. Whatever the reason, street demos in Berkeley often resemble battles between condottieri. There is a great deal of noise and posturing on both sides, but few on either side get seriously hurt.
This is not to say that cops have never committed vicious brutalities in Berkeley. They have. But for the most part, this has been the work of outside forces, county cops, state cops, and even the National Guard. Berkeley actually has two police forces, the University of California police and the municipal police. City Hall controls the municipal police. The university controls the UC cops. The UC cops work on and near campus. The UC cops are most decidedly not on a short leash. They are vicious, brutal, and dangerous. Wisely, they were not engaged on S26.
Two blocks north of Center Street, Shattuck Avenue intersects University Avenue, Berkeley's main drag. Shattuck and University is the largest intersection in Berkeley and is considered the heart of the city. The crowd turned west on University, in part because to turn east would have taken it very quickly into UC cop turf. Experience has taught that it is most unwise to unnecessarily engage a second force while being pursued, even halfheartedly, by the first.
It was at Shattuck and University that one guy tried to burn down a McDonald's. This was a stupid thing to do because there were workers inside. Also, the street outside was well lit and the cops were video taping everything. The rest of the crowd kept its distance from this guy and kept on moving.
When the demonstrators passed the Citibank branch at 2323 Shattuck Ave., two of them were seen breaking windows. In part, Citibank was targeted because it's a symbol of global capitalism. In part it was attacked because the windows were made of glass and not of Lexan. Most bank windows in Berkeley, especially the ones at ground level, are made of Lexan. Bankers may be cold-blooded, evil, and ugly, but stupid they usually are not. Citibank bankers must be an exception. Glass bank windows in Berkeley? I sure wouldn't trust my money to the care of people that dumb.
The bank windows were broken with metal street barricades of the kind used to keep cars from driving into holes in the street and crushing the workers inside. Personally, I believe that Berkeley's powers that be leave these things, as well as all those newspaper vending boxes and trash cans, lying around during demos to give demonstrators something on which to vent their anger. They may even have arranged for a token, breakable bank window to be where it could be reached. It's a whole lot cheaper to let people blow off steam doing minor damage than it is to let their anger build up to the point that they try to burn City Hall and lynch the mayor.
It remains to be seen what sort of action will develop when Clark shows up in town. Perhaps demonstrators will adopt the interesting new tactical technologies that the Italian group Ya Basta used in Prague. Or maybe they'll stick to the tried-and-true. Time will tell. I'll keep you posted. I do intend to be there. But while I'm there, I intend to break no laws. Nor do I advocate that anybody else break any laws. Specifically, I do not advocate rioting. I want to make that perfectly clear, right here in public. If people riot anyway, it's not my fault.
But kids today, what can you do?
Well, I'm out of space again, that's all for this time. Next time we'll examine one of terrorism's less obvious but equally important dichotomies, that between attacks against people and attacks against property. We'll also take a look at certain technological innovations that enable a third option, attacks against information. Specifically, we'll look at HERF guns, TEDs and the mysterious Z-Ray. It'll be fun. So stay tuned. http://www.sfbg.com/nessie/28.html

...Before becoming NATO Commander, Clark was the Director for Strategic Plans and Policy within the Joint Chiefs of Staff. From this vantage point, Clark was well aware of and likely supported the arming of the Bosnian government by accepting contributions from various deep-pocketed Muslim countries, including Saudi Arabia, Iran, Malaysia, Brunei, Jordan, and Egypt. Via something called the Bosnia Defense Fund, these countries deposited millions of dollars into U.S. coffers to buy weapons for the Bosnians and train them in their use through the use of private military contractors like Military Professional Resources, Inc. (MPRI). And when some of the weapons and cash for the Bosnians became "unaccounted for," where did some of the guns and cash wind up? In the hands of Al Qaeda and Iranian Pasdaran (Revolutionary Guard) units in Bosnia.
More interestingly is how General Clark's Bosnia strategy ultimately goes full circle. According to Washington K Street sources, the law firm that established the Bosnia Defense Fund was none other than Feith and Zell, the firm of current Pentagon official and leading neo-con Douglas Feith. Feith's operation at Feith and Zell was assisted by his one-time boss and current member of Rumsfeld's Defense Policy Board, Richard Perle. Both Feith and Perle advised the Bosnian delegation during the 1995 Dayton Peace talks. The chief U.S. military negotiator in Dayton was Wesley Clark. ...

...ROBERT FISK: I have to say first of all about General Clark, that I was on the ground in Serbia in Kosovo when he ran the war there. He didn't seem to be very antiwar at the time. I had as one of my tasks to go out over and over again to look at the civilian casualties of that have war.
At one point NATO bombed the hospital in which Yugoslav soldiers, against the rules of war, were hiding along with the patients and almost all the patients were killed.
This was the war, remember, where the first attack was made on a radio station, the Serb Radio and Television building. Since then we've had attacks twice on the Al Jazeera television station. First of all in Afghanistan in 2001, then killing their chief correspondent, and again in Baghdad, this year.
This was a general who I remember bombed series of bridges, in one of which an aircraft bombed the train and after, he'd seen the train and had come to a stop, the pilot bombed the bridge again.
I saw one occasion when a plane came in, bombed a bridge over a river in Serbia proper, as we like to call it, and after about 12 minutes when rescuers arrived, a bridge too narrow even for tanks, bombed the rescuers.
I remember General Clark telling us that more than 100 Yugoslav tanks had been destroyed in the weeks of that war. And when the war came to an end, we discovered number of Yugoslav tanks destroyed were 11. 100 indeed.
So this was not a man, frankly whom, if I were an American, would vote for, but not being an American, I don't have to. ...

Wesley Clark Lies About NATO Air Campaign
02.Oct.2003 10:41
JOHN BARRY AND EVAN THOMAS, NEWSWEEKMAY 15, 2000 - The air campaign against the Serb military in Kosovo was largely ineffective. NATO bombs plowed up some fields, blew up hundreds of cars, trucks and decoys, and barely dented Serb artillery and armor. According to a suppressed Air Force report obtained by Newsweek, the number of targets verifiably destroyed was a tiny fraction of those claimed: 14 tanks, not 120; 18 armored personnel carriers, not 220; 20 artillery pieces, not 450. Out of the 744 'confirmed' strikes by NATO pilots during the war, the Air Force investigators, who spent weeks combing Kosovo by helicopter and by foot, found evidence of just 58…
The Air Force protested that tanks are hard to hit from 15,000 feet, but Clark insisted. Now that the war is long over, neither the generals nor their civilian masters are eager to delve into what really happened. Asked how many Serb tanks and other vehicles were destroyed in Kosovo, General Clark will only answer, 'Enough.' . . .
At the end of the war the Serbs' ground commander, Gen. Nobojsa Pavkovic, claimed to have lost only 13 tanks. 'Serb disinformation,' scoffed Clark. But quietly, Clark's own staff told him the Serb general might be right. . . His team found dozens of burnt-out cars, buses and trucks-but very few tanks. When General Clark heard this unwelcome news, he ordered the team out of their helicopters: 'Goddammit, drive to each one of those places. Walk the terrain.' The team grubbed about in bomb craters, where more than once they were showered with garbage the local villagers were throwing into these impromptu rubbish pits. . .

[Kollyvas]

http://www.serbianna.com/columns/mb/035.shtml

Al Qaeda in Kosovo

By M. Bozinovich

---

"It's not true there were mujahideen in Kosovo. That is a figment of your imagination." Sabit Kadriu, Albanian ‘human rights’ activist in Kosovo while testifying against Milosevic at the Hague

At the April's international police conference held in Sofia, Bulgaria reiterated that Islamic terrorism is creeping up in the Balkans. Speaking at a regional police anti-crime conference, Bulgarian General Boiko Borisov urged for "joint efforts to fight the global terrorism network" calling on the participants from the likes of Germany, Albania and Turkey to join efforts in limiting militants' access to financing and to enhance security of transport and border control.
Earlier in March, the Bulgarian spy chief Kircho Kirov issued a more specific warning on presence of al Qaeda in the Balkans and bluntly stated that extremists with links to Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaeda network are present in the Balkans and are infiltrating other European countries. In a joint NATO-Bulgarian report published in March 2005, Kirov cities Kosovo as a direct source of regional instability and a hub for international terrorism.

Indeed, speaking by proxy is nothing new, so these broad and sweeping statements by Bulgaria are significant because it is the US with its FBI offices in Sofia that ultimately stand behind these statements. What is not new is that Washington itself, as usual, has elected to remain mute on the specific al-Qaeda presence among Kosovo Albanians so one is left to search for the terrorist dots elsewhere in order to connect them.

For example, Reuven Paz, who teaches at Haifa University and is regarded as one of Israel's leading researchers of radical Islamic movements, says that the Islamic countries and particularly Saudi Arabia view the conflicts in Kosovo as that of Islam against Christianity. "All of the Sunni Muslim groups as well as Iran are making lots of propaganda for Kosovo and see it as a symbol," Paz said. The reason for the propaganda is to attract Muslim volunteers to go to Kosovo and fight. Al-Qaeda then is the only well established network that can provide such a trip for a young prospective Muslim eager to do his Islamic tour of duty and willingly die for Allah.

While reports abound that Bosnian Jihadists simply swerved upon Kosovo during the 1995-1999 period, Jane's International Defense Review reported that some fresh Jihadists were entering Kosovo via Albania as well. In February 1999 Jane's cites that documents found on the body of a KLA member showed that he had escorted several volunteers into Kosovo, including more than a dozen Saudi Arabians.

A more specific case is that of a Syrian-German businessman, Mamoun Darkazanli, who was arrested in Hamburg in October of 2004 on charges that he “helped fund the al-Qaeda terrorist network for years and who is seen in a video at a mosque with some of the Sept. 11 hijackers.” According to the Hamburg authorities, “Darkazanli is alleged to have been involved in the purchase of a ship for bin Laden, handling administrative details, and paying bills. He also allegedly traveled to Kosovo in late 2000 on an al-Qaeda mission”.

In 2003, NBC News acquired a videotaped statement of Muhammad Talal al-Jafar al Tallani Ackbar al-Walid, described as al-Qaeda's Deputy Under-Emir for Defensive Intelligence and Holy War Operations, denouncing US and calling for world Jihad against the West. The report then goes on to describe Muhammad Talal as one that was “involved in noteworthy military operations in the past, serving in covert operations alongside the CIA in Afghanistan and in Bosnia and Kosovo before joining al-Qaeda.” The report cites that American soldiers Lt. Gen. William Boykin and Will Dunham contributed to the report.

Reported al-Qaeda cells in Kosovo are indicated in red, resembling a satellite structure.

Yet, the most blunt admittance that al-Qaeda is in Kosovo comes from the big dogs themselves - Britain and the US.
Alarmed that al-Qaeda may hit Britain during the run-up to the May 5 general elections, UK says that "the main threat is posed by around 200 people based here who have been trained by al Qaeda in Afghan camps for conflict in places such as Chechnya, Bosnia and Kosovo."

Also stated as an inadvertent afterthought that al-Qaeda is in Kosovo came few weeks earlier by the FBI citing an arrest warrant for a certain Kifah Wael Jayyousi accused of "conspiring with two other men in the 1990s to finance, recruit and provide equipment to extremists fighting in Bosnia, Chechnya, Kosovo and Somalia."

The question then is no longer whether al-Qaeda is in Kosovo, but rather how could al-Qaeda have infiltrated Albanian inhabited areas of the Balkans precisely during the period when the US was blanketing it with its own troops.

The Albania Romance

Following the collapse of Stalinism in Albania, the newly elected President Sali Berisha quickly decided to leverage his strategic European location and Islamic heritage by placing his country on sale to the highest Muslim bidder and acquire money from that Islamic sponsor. According to the IWPR “The Islamic connection [in Albania] can be traced back to 1992, when the Tirana-based Economic Tribune published a letter from Berisha to his prime minister, Aleksander Meksi, in which he said was going to help accept aid from Muslim countries because the West had not lived up to promises of financial assistance.”

Islamic countries, and especially Saudi Arabia, were long interested in using Albania as a hub via which to infiltrate Europe and Islamize it. Albania quickly became a distinguished member of world Islamic institutions, including the Islamic Conference and The Islamic Development Bank.

Although there is no indication that the US was alarmed of the new Islamic sponsors at the time, Washington initiated a takeover of Albania and dully began supplying direct assistance following Berisha’s visit to the US in March 1991 while in 1992 Washington deployed a Military Liaison Team to the country and started outfitting the Albanian military. Albania was subsequently used by the US and Turkey to provide supplies to Bosnian Muslims in their war against Serbs.

While US was instituting a military takeover of Albania, Albanian-Jihadist nexus was maintained by Albania’s Chief of Security Baskim Gazidede. Israeli Mossad documented that the Security Chief Gazidede had extensive connections with the Jihadists and was the chief link between al-Qaeda, Albania and KLA. Says Albanian Gazeta Shqiptare: “'The Gazidede file', widely disputed of connections with the Islamics must have already been completed with data which 'Mossad' has gathered over the last years". Gazidede subsequently ran off to Syria, another terror sponsoring nation.

Before his departure to Syria, however, Gazidede established training camps across Albania and the often cited ones are in Tropoje and Bajram Curi. Given the influx of al-Qaeda into Albania it is then logical to conclude that these Jihadists had to have, at least, some form of an orientation meeting somewhere in Albania before let lose in Kosovo.

Indeed, reports abound that US, British SAS and German BND trained, equipped and used the Kosovo Liberation Army units, by now pregnant with al Qaeda Jihadists, to destabilize Serbia. In March of 2000, for example, London Times uncovered American agents that “admitted they helped to train the Kosovo Liberation Army [KLA] before Nato's bombing” of Serbia while in August of 2000 the KLA deputy chief of staff Colonel Dilaver Goxhaj gave an interview to UPI stating that senior Albanian commanders were trained in Albania since 1991.

French Le Monde, furthermore, states that by “1996 the BND intelligence service was building up its offices in Tirana and Rome to select and train prospective KLA cadres. Special forces in Berlin provided the operational training and supplied arms and transmission equipment from ex-East German Stasi stocks as well as black uniforms.”

During March-May 1999 when NATO bombed Serbia, NATOs General Wesley Clark’s cell phone number was found among the killed KLA commanders in Kosovo.

Seized KLA weapons such as American Barrett M82 .50 cal sniper rifles along with German models, as well as reports of American 'Stinger' SAMs used by KLA Albanians during their war with Macedonia also point to the US-Albanian collaboration.

Finally, in February 2005, German Network TV ZDF concluded that the Albanian “KLA has stronger ties with the CIA than the [German] BND. Commander Hoxha had ties with the CIA, the BND and with the Austrian military intelligence service which has devoted great attention to this region and has very good connections with the KLA."

Far from ignorant of al-Qaeda in Albania, the US appears to have had an uneasy relationship with them. Illustrates Tirana based Gazeta Shqiptare: “The arrests of Ahmed Ibrahim Al Naggar and Mohammed Hassan Mahmoud, and the extradition of the director of the Revival of Islamic Legacy foundation as a jihad collaborator in Tirana in June 1998, the arrest of Amoid Naji in Turin of Italy and his deposition before Italian investigators that he was in Albania to blow up the US embassy in Tirana, and other facts of this kind go to prove that the activity of terrorist jihad organizations is present and well-organized in Albania.”

Gazeta Shqiptare goes on to say that “Islamic terrorist organizations managed to set up Albania's first cell of the Islamic Jihad, which was headed by Aiman Al Zavahiri.” the famous Osama bin Laden No. 2.

Regarding Naggar, the New York Times says that he is “the Jihad member, [who] tied Mr. bin Laden directly to the network in Albania”. The Times then provides a vivid detail: “Albania cell's members, most employed at Islamic charities in Tirana, were forced to transfer 26 percent of their salaries to Islamic Jihad.” The chief of the Albanian al-Qaeda, the Egyptian Shawki Salama Mustafa, moved in there with his wife Jihan Hassan, who later testified that their business was to turn out passports and that she “saw a passport with my name on it and it said I was Albanian".

According to the Global Policy, in addition to the drug and human trafficking, Albanian criminal network in Brussells specializes in forging of documents and false passports. An al-Qaeda operative, Djamel Beghala, was arrested in Dubai after the customs agent recognized one of these Albanian type false passports.

What these reports suggest is that Clinton extended his "don't ask, don't tell" policy to Albania allowing it to assimilate al Qaeda within the Albanian KLA army and only then to provide the training, equipment and arms to them in order to wage war on Serbia. The "assimilation" part is what kept Clinton safe from being accused of being in bed with the al-Qaeda.

Since 9/11, the original mandate of waging war on Serbia appears to have been appended with a danger sign: "Our presence in the Balkans has not only promoted peace in the region, it has also enhanced our ability to conduct counter-terrorism operations." said Gen. Richard Myers in 2003 following his trip to Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo.

Has the US established a firm enough infrastructure in the Balkans to combat the terrorist Islamic plague emanating out of the Albanian-dominated Kosovo?

The Bulgarian Romance

Denying Russia airspace in 1999 was historically unprecedented move by Bulgaria that initiated its gambit to be the Western spy proxy in the Balkans. During the bombing of Serbia that followed, moreover, Bulgarian intelligence agents were used to point sensitive targets in Serbia and later were inserted as a spy unit within the Dutch contingent of KFOR, the NATO army that runs Kosovo. The KFOR Commander Reinhardt was rather impressed by the Bulgarian spies so he extended their mission in order "to activate the collaboration with the Kosovo population in the spying and the collection of information".

To speed up the American intelligence approachment, Bulgaria made another gambit and removed Russia from the Bulgarian picture. Impressed by Bulgaria's removal of Russian spies out of their country, the director of the FBI, Louis Freeh, said, "Bulgaria is a key strategic partner for the U.S., not just in the security area," and announced in March 2001 that FBI may open an office in Bulgarian capital Sofia.

In 2002, General Borisov was summoned to the US and, to his delight, told that FBI will establish a permanent FBI office in Bulgaria.

In 2004, the US Embassy in Bulgaria announced that a permanent office is in place and the mission is "to protect and defend the United States against terrorist and foreign intelligence threats."

This year, FBI is undergoing an expansion that will open up 2,086 new spy jobs, 615 agent and 508 Intelligence Analyst positions, of which FBI plans to have permanent Legal Attachés in Bulgaria and Bosnia.

The NATO-Bulgaria spying agreement also indicates that NATO has decided to make Bulgaria the spymaster not only for the Muslim Kosovo Albanians but of Chechens with whom Bulgaria once shared a common Stalinist brotherhood. The conspicuous Bulgarian spying on Chechnya along with Kosovo indicates that the US may be alarmed at the already reported Kosovo-Chechen terror network. In February of 2000, Russian intelligence from the Federal Security Service (FSB) made a claim that "Chechen warlords started buying up real estate in Kosovo... through several real estate firms registered as a cover in Yugoslavia” and have extensive ties with the Albanian organized crime figures in Kosovo whose relatives are involved in Kosovo politics and are seeking independence from Serbia.

Therefore, Bulgarian blunt claims that al-Qaeda is in Kosovo are not some haphazard blabber but rather a carefully orchestrated plan where the burden of spying and intelligence discovery is shifted away from the West because it is a diplomatic burden in their dealings with Kosovo Albanians who were their proxy fighters and a manufactured, and a well processed, ready-to-use pretext against Serbia.

Sidelining of Serbia

Sensing the imminent decision to anoint Bulgaria as the Balkan spymaster, Serbian intelligence chief Momir Stojanovic gave an interview to the official government news agency Tanjug in February 2004 and said that Islamist militants - including al Qaeda - are actively operating in Kosovo, Albania and Macedonia.

While the official pretext for Stojanovic’s interview was to protest previous day's NATOs declaration that Kosovo operations are “a success and a benchmark for future NATO missions”, Stojanovic’s interview reads more like an invitation to the US rather then criticism.

Heavy on specifics, Stojanovic began touting that Serbia has "procured" loads of detail on al-Qaeda in the Balkans: “We have also procured evidence that Al Qaeda has its strongholds in Kosovo and northern Albania… and their activities have also been reported in western Macedonia", said Stojanovic then proceeded to make a direct sales pitch of Serbia to the US with the statement that Serbia has a well established spying infrastructure across the Balkans because the Serbian intelligence agents have been monitoring the Islamists for more than a year.

The then-Serbian Minister of Defense Boris Tadic, now President of Serbia, quickly denied Stojanovic’s claims although in September 2003 Tadic himself told a Macedonian newspaper that militant Islamic organizations are active in the region and are acting in concert. Tadic’s denunciation of Stojanovic’s statement was followed with a similar NATO statement that publicly trashed Stojanovic’s statement as another Serbian gibberish.

The trashing of Stojanovic effectively sidelined Serbia and sealed Bulgaria’s anointing as the Balkan spymaster.

That Stojanovic was not talking gibberish, however, was proved in December 2004 when an intelligence tip was made that al Qaeda operatives were planning to land in Kosovo capital, Pristina, and use the Albanian terror cells in Kosovo to attack US and the West but abruptly changed these plans and moved in to another Albanian stronghold in the village of Kondovo near Macedonia’s capital Skopje. The US took this intelligence tip seriously enough and shut the US embassy and all US government offices in Skopje.

Washington Mute

While American stubborn denial, and often a belittling public denouncing, especially of Serb sources, that al-Qaeda is in Kosovo may be politically motivated, it is, nevertheless, fueling delusional belief among Albanian public that al-Qaeda is not among them.

For example, Balkan Affairs Adviser for the Albanian lobby group in Washington, the AACL, claims that “Bogus reports have proliferated since the bombing of New York’s World Trade Center about Bin Laden’s forays into Albania and the existence of mujahedin training camps in Kosova” and that those reports have Serbian origin. The problem with this spin is not that the followers of this lobby group get indoctrinated in believing statements that are contrary to the facts, but that the policy-makers close with the AACL may compromise the security of the US in that region. For example, the most notable recepient of Albanian money and a great friend of AACL, Senator Joseph Biden sits on the powerful Foreign Relations Committe and is contempleting a presidential run in 2008.

Although reports on al-Qaeda's Kosovo presence by FBI, USA Today, New York Times or German papers hardly qualify as spin, the American silence on specifics of al-Qaeda in Kosovo also impacts the Serbian side. Infuriated by the silence, Serbian officials issue bellicose responses: “Belgrade should have done more and should have looked for partners in the fight against terrorism" laments Rada Trajkovic, a deputy of the President of the People council of the north Kosovo. Trajkovic is in effect, blaming Belgrade for its inability to translate presence of Islamic terrorists in Kosovo into a pro-Serb policy shift of the West on the issue of the Kosovo status.

Of course, having Milosevic give a presentation on al Qaeda in Kosovo is indeed the case where the messinger is killing the message, the case of the US Embassy shut down in Skopje indicates that the the likes of Stojanovic should be taken seriously. In fact, the January 2005 report of the Washington based Center For Strategic & International Studies indicates that what Stojanovic has "procured" is taken seriously: "Al Qaeda’s influence in the Balkans was established a few years ago... Islamist extremist groups in the Balkans such as 'Vehabija', 'Crvena Ruza' (Red Rose), and 'Teratikt', which remain closely linked with Al Qaeda, are active in Kosmet..., Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, and Macedonia."

Furthermore, in eastern Kosovo's city of Pec, Wahhabies have established an orientation camp where holy Muslim warriors congregate around a recently erected Wahhabi mosque. The Mosque is run by certain Mahmutovic from Sjenica, a Serbian city in area of Sadzak that is a brewing hotbed of Islamic hatred of the West and the Jews. Sandzak is also the center of the Islamic Community, an outfit that governs Balkan Muslim Imams including the Albanian ones in Kosovo.

Based on these reports then, the map of al-Qaeda centers in Kosovo indicates a satellite-type organizational structure: KLA controls the center of Kosovo with Drenica as the stronghold with strategic satellite to the west near Junik necessary for control of smuggling routes from Albania. Just across from Junik range is Tropoje and Bajram Cura, another reportedly al-Qaeda centers in Albania itself.

The control of Shar Mountain range to the southeast can be used by al-Qaeda to send groups into Macedonia to wage violence there as well as maintain logistical support for their criminal enterprise in other al-Qaeda centers in western Macedonia such as the cities of Tetovo, Gostivar and Kichevo.

The reported Al-Qaeda presence in the Pomoravlje region in the East Kosovo appears to be the staging area for fomenting violence into southern Serbia while the northern al-Qaeda satellites such as in Bajgora, north of Mitrovica, is there to foment fear among Serb communities in Mitorvica, most sizable in Kosovo, and thus give them an incentive to leave. The reports also indicate that a so-called Abu Baqr Sadiq mojahedin unit is operating in southern Mitrovica, indicating that the city is surrounded and ready to be cleansed of Serbs at the next outbreak of violence in Kosovo that may dwarf the one that occured in March 2004.

Could this be a deliberate set up that will be used as the pretext to allow the Serbian troops back into Kosovo according to the UN Resolution 1244? Or is a deliberate in the other direction: to finally exterminate all Serbs out of Kosovo?

One can interpret Washington's silence both ways.

[Kollyvas]

http://www.balkanpeace.org/hed/archive/ ... 4304.shtml

The Wall Street Journal Europe, November 01, 2001
Al Qaeda´s Balkan Links

November 1, 2001

by Marcia Christoff Kurop

The Balkans´ uncharacteristically silent exit from the world stage as the most prominent international hot spot of the last decade belies its status as a major recruiting and training center of Osama bin Laden´s al Qaeda network. By feeding off the region´s impoverished republics and taking root in the unsettled diplomatic aftermath of the Bosnia and Kosovo conflicts, al Qaeda, along with Iranian Revolutionary Guard-sponsored terrorists, have burrowed their way into Europe´s backyard.

For the past 10 years, the most senior leaders of al Qaeda have visited the Balkans, including bin Laden himself on three occasions between 1994 and 1996. The Egyptian surgeon turned terrorist leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri has operated terrorist training camps, weapons of mass destruction factories and money-laundering and drug-trading networks throughout Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Turkey and Bosnia. This has gone on for a decade. Many recruits to the Balkan wars came originally from Chechnya, a jihad in which Al Qaeda has also played a part.

These activities have been exhaustively researched by Yossef Bodansky, the former director of the U.S. House of Representatives´ Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare. The February testimony of an Islamist ringleader associated with the East Africa bombings have also helped throw light on these actions.

They have however been disguised under the cover of dozens of "humanitarian" agencies spread throughout Bosnia, Kosovo and Albania. Funding has come from now-defunct banks such as the Albanian-Arab Islamic Bank and from bin Laden´s so-called Advisory and Reformation Committee. One of his largest Islamist front agencies, it was established in London in 1994.

Narco-Jihad Culture

The overnight rise of heroin trafficking through Kosovo -- now the most important Balkan route between Southeast Asia and Europe after Turkey -- helped also to fund terrorist activity directly associated with al Qaeda and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Opium poppies, which barely existed in the Balkans before 1995, have become the No. 1 drug cultivated in the Balkans after marijuana. Operatives of two al Qaeda-sponsored Islamist cells who were arrested in Bosnia on Oct. 23 were linked to the heroin trade, underscoring the narco-jihad culture of today´s post-war Balkans.

These drug rings in turn form part of an estimated $8 billion a year Taliban annual income from global drug trafficking, predominantly in heroin. According to Mr. Bodansky, the terrorism expert, bin Laden administers much of that trade through Russian mafia groups for a commission of 10% to 15% -- or around $1 billion annually.

The settling of Afghan-trained mujahideen in the Balkans began around 1992, when recruits were brought into Bosnia by the ruling Islamic party of Bosnia, the Party of Democratic Action, from Chechnya, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan, as well as Italy, Germany and Turkey. They were all given journalists´ credentials to avoid explicit detection by the West. Others were married immediately to Bosnian Muslim women and incorporated into regular army ranks.

Intelligence services of the Nordic-Polish SFOR (previously IFOR) sector alerted the U.S. of their presence in 1992 while the number of mujahideen operating in Bosnia alone continued to grow from a few hundred to around 6,000 in 1995. Though the Clinton administration had been briefed extensively by the State Department in 1993 on the growing Islamist threat in former Yugoslavia, little was done to follow through.

The Bosnian Embassy in Vienna issued a passport to bin Laden in 1993, according to various reports in the Yugoslav press at the time. The reports add that bin Laden then visited a terrorist camp in Zenica, Bosnia in 1994. The Bosnian government denies all of this, but admits that some passport records have been lost. Around that time, bin Laden directed al Qaeda "senior commanders" to incorporate the Balkans into an complete southeastern approach to Europe, an area stretching from the Caucasus to Italy. Al Zawahiri, the Egyptian surgeon reputed to be the second in command of the entire al Qaeda network, headed up this southeastern frontline.

By 1994, major Balkan terrorist training camps included Zenica, and Malisevo and Mitrovica in Kosovo. Elaborate command-and-control centers were further established in Croatia, and Tetovo, Macedonia as well as around Sofia, Bulgaria, according to the U.S. Congress´s task force on terrorism. In Albania, the main training camp included even the property of former Albanian premier Sali Berisha in Tropje, Albania, who was then very close to the Kosovo Liberation Army.

Not even stalwart NATO ally Turkey escaped the network. Areas beyond government control were also visited by bin Laden in 1996 according to London-based Jane´s Intelligence Review. The government has been battling two terrorist groups: Jund al Islam, whose assassinated Syrian leader was one of bin Laden´s closets confidantes, and the Kurdish PKK, whose leader, Abdullah Ocalan, merged his group´s activities with those of Iran´s Hezbollah in 1998.

Furthermore, as revealed in the February 2001 East Africa bombing trial testimony of Jamal al Fadl -- an al Qaeda operative in charge of weapons development in Sudan -- uranium used in "dirty bombs" that release lethal radioactive material, had been tested in 1994 by members of the Sudan-based Islamic National Front in the town of Hilat Koko, in Turkish-held northern Cyprus. Cyprus, both its north and southern sides, has also become a center for offshore money laundering by Arab banks fronting al Qaeda funds into the Balkans. The CIA puts al Qaeda´s specific Balkan-directed funds -- those tied to the "humanitarian" agencies and local banks and not explicitly counting the significant drug profits added to that -- at around $500 million to $700 million between 1992 and 1998.

So where was the U.S. in all this? It was not until 1995 that the Clinton administration was forced to start pursuing the Islamist network in the Balkans. Not quite a month after the Dayton accords had been signed in November 1995, an influx of Iranian arms came into Bosnia with the apparent tacit approval of the administration, in violation of U.N. sanctions. While publicly pressing Bosnian President Alia Izebegovic to purge remaining Islamist elements, the administration was loath to confront Sarajevo and Tehran over their presence.

Instead, Islamist groups went quietly underground as the windfall of weapons landed in their hands. They later joined up with a new Islamist center in Sofia established as a kind of rear guard by the al Zawahiri. Following the Zagreb arrest and extradition of renowned Egyptian militant Faud Qassim, an al Zawahiri favorite, the Sofia-based militants planned the deployment in Bosnia of terrorists capable of planning and leading possible major terrorist strikes against U.S. and SFOR facilities, according to al Fadl´s testimony to the House Task Force on Terrorism.

Islamist infiltration of the Kosovo Liberation Army advanced, meanwhile. Bin Laden is said to have visited Albania in 1996 and 1997, according to the murder-trial testimony of an Algerian-born French national, Claude Kader, himself an Afghanistan-trained mujahideen fronting at the Albanian-Arab Islamic Bank. He recruited some Albanians to fight with the KLA in Kosovo, according to the Paris-based Observatoire Geopolitique des Drogues.

Controversial Relationship

By early 1998 the U.S. had already entered into its controversial relationship with the KLA to help fight off Serbian oppression of that province. While in February the U.S. gave into KLA demands to remove it from the State Department´s terrorism list, the gesture amounted to little. That summer the CIA and CIA-modernized Albanian intelligence (SHIK) were engaged in one of the largest seizures of Islamic Jihad cells operating in Kosovo.

Fearing terrorist reprisal from al Qaeda, the U.S. temporarily closed its embassy in Tirana and a trip to Albania by then Defense Secretary William Cohen was canceled out of fear of an assassination attempt. Meanwhile, Albanian separatism in Kosovo and Metohija was formally characterized as a "jihad" in October 1998 at an annual international Islamic conference in Pakistan.

Nonetheless, the 25,000 strong KLA continued to receive official NATO/U.S. arms and training support and, at the talks in Rambouillet, France, then Secretary of State Madeleine Albright shook hands with "freedom fighter" Hashim Thaci, a KLA leader. As this was taking place, Europol (the European Police Organization based in The Hague) was preparing a scathing report on the connection between the KLA and international drug gangs. Even Robert Gelbard, America´s special envoy to Bosnia, officially described the KLA as Islamic terrorists.

With the future status of Kosovo still in question, the only real development that may be said to be taking place there is the rise of Wahhabi Islam -- the puritanical Saudi variety favored by bin Laden -- and the fastest growing variety of Islam in the Balkans. Today, in general, the Balkans are left without the money, political resources, or institutional strength to fight a war on terrorism. And that, for the Balkan Islamists, is a Godsend.

Links

Bin Laden’s Balkan Connections
http://www.balkanpeace.org/our/our09.shtml

Balkan wars and terrorist ties
http://www.balkanpeace.org/our/our02.shtml

Director of the U.S. Congress' Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional warfare: "Some Call It Peace"
http://members.tripod.com/Balkania/reso ... part1.html

NATO Probes Claims that Bin Laden is in Kosovo
http://www.balkanpeace.org/hed/archive/ ... ed80.shtml

Persecution Watch : Kosovo
http://www.balkanpeace.org/hed/archive/ ... d127.shtml

Defang the KLA
http://www.balkanpeace.org/library/pict ... worth.html

Destabilizing the Balkans: US & Albanian Defense Cooperation in the 1990s
http://www.balkanpeace.org/rs/archive/mar01/rs126.shtml

Bin Laden in Kosovo
http://www.balkanpeace.org/hed/archive/ ... ed76.shtml

Bosnia Arrests Three Suspected Bin Laden´s Associates
http://www.balkanpeace.org/hed/archive/ ... 3790.shtml

A Bosnian Village's Terrorist Ties; Links to U.S. Bomb Plot Arouse Concern About Enclave of Islamic Guerrillas
http://www.balkanpeace.org/wtb/wtb12.shtml

Bin Laden opens European terror base in Albania
http://www.balkanpeace.org/wtb/wtb08.html

US tackles Islamic militancy in Kosovo
http://www.balkanpeace.org/wtb/wtb06.html

US alarmed as Mujahidin join Kosovo rebels
http://www.balkanpeace.org/wtb/wtb05.html

[Kollyvas]

http://prisonplanet.com/us_supported_al ... _wars.html

U.S. supported al-Qaeda cells during Balkan Wars
Fought serbian troops

Isabel Vincent
National Post

Original Link: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/world/ ... 44843.html

Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terrorist network has been active in the Balkans for years, most recently helping Kosovo rebels battle for independence from Serbia with the financial and military backing of the United States and NATO.

The claim that al-Qaeda played a role in the Balkan wars of the 1990s came from an alleged FBI document former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic presented in his defence before the Hague tribunal last week. Mr. Milosevic faces 66 counts of war crimes and genocide.

Although Hague prosecutors have challenged the veracity of the document, which Mr. Milosevic identified as a Congressional statement from the FBI dated last December, Balkan experts say the presence of al-Qaeda militants in Kosovo and Bosnia is well documented.

Today, al-Qaeda members are helping the National Liberation Army, a rebel group in Macedonia, fight the Skopje government in a bid for independence, military analysts say. Last week, Michael Steiner, the United Nations administrator in Kosovo, warned of "importing the Afghan danger to Europe" because several cells trained and financed by al-Qaeda remain in the region.

"Many members of the Kosovo Liberation Army were sent for training in terrorist camps in Afghanistan," said James Bissett, former Canadian ambassador to Yugoslavia and an expert on the Balkans. "Milosevic is right. There is no question of their participation in conflicts in the Balkans. It is very well documented."

The arrival in the Balkans of the so-called Afghan Arabs, who are from various Middle Eastern states and linked to al-Qaeda, began in 1992 soon after the war in Bosnia. According to Lenard Cohen, professor of political science at Simon Fraser University, mujahedeen fighters who travelled to Afghanistan to resist the Soviet occupation in the 1980s later "migrated to Bosnia hoping to assist their Islamic brethren in a struggle against Serbian [and for a time] Croatian forces."

The Bosnian Muslims welcomed their assistance. After the Bosnian war, "hundreds of Bosnian passports were provided to the mujahedeen by the Muslim-controlled government in Sarajevo," said Prof. Cohen in a recent article titled Bin Laden and the war in the Balkans. Many al-Qaeda members decided to stay in the region after marrying local Muslim women, he said.

They also set up secret terrorist training camps in Bosnia -- activities financed by the sale of opium produced in Afghanistan and secretly shipped through Turkey and Kosovo into central Europe.

In the years immediately before the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, the al-Qaeda militants moved into Kosovo, the southern province of Serbia, to help ethnic Albanian extremists of the KLA mount their terrorist campaign against Serb targets in the region.

The mujahedeen "were financed by Saudi and United Arab Emirates money," said one Western military official, asking anonymity. "They were mercenaries who were not running the show in Kosovo, but were used by the KLA to do their dirty work."

The United States, which had originally trained the Afghan Arabs during the war in Afghanistan, supported them in Bosnia and then in Kosovo. When NATO forces launched their military campaign against Yugoslavia three years ago to unseat Mr. Milosevic, they entered the Kosovo conflict on the side of the KLA, which had already received "substantial" military and financial support from bin Laden's network, analysts say.

In the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist strikes on the United States, NATO began to worry about the presence in the Balkans of the Islamist terrorist cells it had supported throughout the 1990s.

ivencent@nationalpost.com

[Kollyvas]

http://www.kosovo.com/news/archive/tick ... _11/15.htm

Al-Qaeda Active In The Balkans: Senior Bulgarian Secret Service Official
AFP
January 11, 2005
SOFIA, AFP January 11, 2005 - Extremists with links to Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaeda network are present in the Balkans and are infiltrating other European countries, a senior Bulgarian secret service official said on Monday.

"We have information that people with connections to structures linked to Al Qaeda have passed through Bulgaria to on their way to neighbouring European countries," secret service chief General Kircho Kirov said. "There are people in the Balkans who have been in Chechnya and Afghanistan. Some have been active in Iraq," he told the Trud daily newspaper.

[Kollyvas]

http://www.dailybruin.ucla.edu/DB/issue ... myrna.html

...By Kathleen Rhames

Daily Bruin Contributor

Photographs have a way of revealing bitter truths. Since its invention, the camera has documented history, immortalizing the crux of changing civilizations.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in Kerckhoff Art Gallery's latest exhibit, "The Smyrna Affair: The Catastrophe of 1922." Depicted through a series of revealing photographs and postcards, the exhibit tells the story of the Turkish massacre that drove 1.5 million Greek and Armenian citizens from Asia Minor. ...

http://www.ellopos.net/politics/turkey- ... efault.asp
...An Account of the Systematic Extermination of Christian Populations by Mohammedans [Turks] and of the Culpability of Certain Great Powers; with the True Story of the Burning of Smyrna ...

http://www.ahistoryofgreece.com/venizelos.htm
...In 1912 the Turkish army loots the villages of Didymotichon and Adrianopoli districts. Villages of the Malgara district are burnt as well as Kessani and a number of assassinations and massacres accompany the destruction and looting in this predominantly Greek region of Eastern Thrace. A year later the Turkish army commits atrocities and massacres of Greeks in the same area killing more than 15,000. In May of 1914 the Turkish authorities at Pergamum command all Christians to leave the town within two hours. The terrorized inhabitants cross over to the Greek island of Mytilini. That same year the Turkish government creates forced labor battalions made up of Greek-Ottoman citizens who are drafted into the Turkish army. Thousands die or disappear. Armenian intellectuals and prominent national Armenian leaders in Constantinople and the provinces are arrested and deported to Anatolia. Many are slain on the road. The Armenian soldiers who are in the Turkish army are disarmed and massacred by thousands. The Armenian population is forced to march to exile in the Syrian desert. Tens of thousands die or are killed and massacred by the Turkish Army and civilians along the way. In all over a million and a half Armenians die during this period. The Turks also begin persecution against the Syrian Orthodox and Nestorians living in Hakkari, Mardin and Midyat regions, their deaths equaling that of the Armenians. Of 16,750 Pontian Greeks who are forced to leave their villages and march east towards Syria, only some 500 survive.

In 1918 the Armenians who have been fighting the Turks are victorious and proclaim the Independent Armenian Republic, which Turkey recognizes. In August 1920 the treaty of Sevres provides an independent Armenia, self determination for Kurdistan and liberation of Eastern Thrace and Smyrna. President Woodrow Wilson declares the right for self-determination of all peoples of Asia Minor. But a month later Nationalist Turkish forces attack Armenia.. The Armenian defeat is followed by a general massacre and the annexation of one half of the independent Armenia to Turkey. ...
..