KLA rebels train in terrorist camps
By Jerry Seper
The Washington Times, May 4, 1999
Some members of the Kosovo Liberation Army, which has
financed its war effort through the sale of heroin, were trained in
terrorist camps run by international fugitive Osama bin Laden -- who is
wanted in the 1998 bombing of two U.S. embassies in Africa that killed
224 persons, including 12 Americans.
The destruction of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya
was blamed by the U.S. on Osama bin Laden's group.
Well before the start of the NATO operation reports
were pointing to his ties to KLA.
The KLA members, embraced by the Clinton administration in NATO's 41-day
bombing campaign to bring Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to the
bargaining table, were trained in secret camps in Afghanistan, Bosnia
and elsewhere, according to newly obtained intelligence reports.
The reports also show that the KLA has enlisted Islamic terrorists --
members of the Mujahideen --as soldiers in its ongoing conflict against
Serbia, and that many already have been smuggled into Kosovo to join the
fight.
Known to its countrymen as the Ushtria Clirimatare e
Kosoves, the KLA has as many as 30,000 members, a number reportedly on
the rise as a result of NATO's continuing bombing campaign. The group's
leadership, including Agim Ceku, a former Croatian army brigadier
general, has rapidly become a political and military force in the
Balkans. The intelligence reports document what is described as a "link"
between bin Laden, the fugitive Saudi including a common staging area in
Tropoje, Albania, a center for Islamic terrorists.
The reports said bin Laden's organization, known as
al-Qaeda, has both trained and financially supported
the KLA.
Many border crossings into Kosovo by "foreign fighters"
also have been documented and include veterans of the
militant group Islamic Jihad from Bosnia, Chechnya and Afghanistan. Many
of the crossings originated in neighboring Albania and, according to the
reports, included parties of up to 50 men.
Jane's International Defense Review, a highly respected
British Journal, reported in February that documents
found last year on the body of a KLA member showed that he
had escorted several volunteers into Kosovo, including
more than a dozen Saudi Arabians. Each volunteer carried a passport
identifying him as a Macedonian Albanian.
Bin Laden and his military commander, Mohammed Atef, were
named in a federal indictment handed up in November in New
York for the simultaneous explosions Aug. 7 at the U.S. embassies in
Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The indictment accused the
two men of directing the attacks, which injured more than 5,000 people.
The indictment said bin Laden, working through al-Qaeda,
forged alliances with government officials in Iran,
the National Islamic Front in the Sudan and an Iranian terrorist
organization known as Hezbollah. He was indicted earlier this year by a
federal grand jury in New York for his suspected terrorist activities.
The al-Qaeda is believed to have targeted U.S. embassies and American
soldiers stationed in Saudi Arabia and Somalia. The organization also is
accused of housing and training terrorists, and of raising money to
support their causes.
The State Department, along with other federal agencies, offered a $5
million reward last year for information leading to the arrest and
conviction of the two men. Mr Clinton ordered a retaliatory attack on
training bases controlled by bin Laden in Afghanistan and a chemical
factory near Khartoum, Sudan, after the bombings.
Last year, while State Department officials labeled the
KLA a terrorist organization, saying it bankrolled its operations with
proceeds from the heroin trade and from loans from known terrorists like
bin Laden, the department listed the group as an "insurgency"
organization in its official reports. The officials charged that the KLA
used terrorist tactics to assault Serbian and ethnic Albanian civilians
in a campaign to ruthlessly induce Western media sympathy and achieve
independence.
The KLA's involvement in drug smuggling as a means of
raising funds for weapons is long-standing. Intelligence documents show
it has aligned itself with an extensive organized crime network in
Albania that smuggles heroin to buyers throughout Western Europe and the
United States.
Drug agents in five countries believe the cartel is one
of the most powerful heroin smuggling organizations in
the world. The documents show heroin and some cocaine is
moved over land and sea from Turkey through Bulgaria,
Greece and Yugoslavia to Western Europe and elsewhere.
The circuit has become known as the "Balkan Route."
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration said in a recent report that
drug smuggling organizations composed of Kosovo's ethnic Albanians were
considered "second only to Turkish gangs as the predominant heroin
smugglers along the Balkan Route." Greek Interpol representatives have
called Kosovo's ethnic Albanians "the primary sources of supply for
cocaine and heroin in that country."
France's Geopolitical Observatory of Drugs said the KLA
was a key player in the rapidly expanding drugs-for-arms business and
helped transport $2 billion in drugs a year into Western Europe. German
drug agents said $1.5 billion in drug profits is laundered annually by
Kosovo smugglers, through as many as 200 private banks or
currency-exchange offices.
Jane's Intelligence Review estimated in March that drug
sales could have netted the KLA profits in the "high
tens of millions of dollars." It said the KLA had rearmed itself for a
spring offensive with the aid of drug money, along with donations from
Albanians in Western Europe and the United States.
Serbian News Network - SNN
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http://www.antic.org/
