Serbian Troops Placed on Alert After Kosovo Police Arrests
Serbia has ordered its troops to full alert after reports that Kosovo police entered Serb-populated regions of the former Serbian province.
By Associated Press, Wire Service Content May 28, 2019, at 4:42 a.m.
By DUSAN STOJANOVIC, Associated Press
BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Serbia ordered its troops to full alert on Tuesday as tensions soared in the Balkans amid reports that heavily armed Kosovo police entered Serb-populated regions of the former Serbian province and made several arrests.
Serbia's state TV said shots were heard and tear gas was used as Kosovo's special police "burst into" a village in northern Kosovo with armored vehicles early in the morning. The region bordering Serbia is 90 percent populated by Serbs, who refuse to be part of Kosovo.
Kosovo Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj confirmed the action, saying on Twitter that an "anti-smuggling and organized crime operation" is underway in northern Kosovo.
Read more at: https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2019-05-28/serbian-troops-placed-on-alert-after-kosovo-police-arrests
Amazingly, quite a bit of news coming out of Kosovo this morning, nothing to get overly alarmed about but worth taking note.
Barricading the roads:
https://twitter.com/BalkanInsightFurther
Balkan Insight coverage: No endorsement, article from TAC, The American Conservative:
The Kosovo War at 20
How this oft-forgotten conflict unleashed our hyper-powered American exceptionalism and birthed an era of forever war.
By Gil Barndollar • April 29, 2019
Marines from the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit escort Serbian detainees to the Kosovo-Serbian border before they are released to Serbian authorities, July 1999. (By Craig J. Shell, U.S. Marine Corps)
This is a year of major European milestones. In April, NATO turned 70, to subdued celebrations in Washington and questions about the alliance’s continued relevance. June will mark the centennial of the Treaty of Versailles, a rending of empires that provided only a brief respite from world war. November will see the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Lost in these commemorations is the 20th anniversary of a brief, minor war. NATO began dropping bombs on Serbian forces in Kosovo on March 24, 1999. This three-month bombing campaign in the Balkans is an afterthought to most Americans today, a distant memory after the last two decades of ceaseless war around the Greater Middle East. Even at the time, Kosovo’s victors didn’t try too hard to inflate their accomplishment. When it was over, General Wesley Clark, Supreme Allied Commander Europe and the war’s director, admitted that, “This was not, strictly speaking, a war.â€
Kosovo’s veterans, none of whom died in action, won’t receive a spot on the National Mall. Yet the Kosovo War is worth reflecting on as a harbinger of many key features of America’s post-9/11 foreign policy—the era of forever war.
Read more at: https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-kosovo-war-at-20/
So, no, I don't think this war or maybe better put, hostilities are going to be growing and break into a hot war. It is interesting to watch.
Pretext for actions was that organized crime was operating out of the Serb controlled area, this thing has been quite a shocker this morning. That was such a bad little war.
B92, Serbia coverage:
https://balkaninsight.com/2019/05/28/kosovo-police-stage-major-raid-in-serb-majority-north/I have sympathy for the Serbian people, not the gangsters like Arkan who ran those wars for their own benefit. No need for Eastern European gangsters on any side.
