Al-Qaeda’s Balkan Presence
While the Bush administration redirected its focus in the "war on terror" to Iraq, U.S. troops under UN/NATO command are scouring the Balkans for al-Qaeda agents. StrategyPage.com reported in late September that "NATO troops continue to comb [Bosnia] looking for al-Qaeda members and sympathizers. Names of these men are being picked up in Afghanistan and elsewhere, and dozens have been found hiding out in Bosnia."
Significantly, Bosnia is a UN protectorate carved out of the former Yugoslavia with the help of U.S. military intervention. The Muslim component of the multi-ethnic Bosnian government has long been aligned with both Iran and Osama bin Laden.
The 1999 NATO bombing of Serbia resulted in the UN setting up another protectorate in the former Yugoslav province of Kosovo, now under the rule of the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). Working to undermine neighboring Macedonia as part of its campaign for a "Greater Albania," the KLA is financed by drug smuggling and has also received support and material assistance from bin Laden. Not surprisingly, KLA-dominated Kosovo, like Bosnia, is swarming with suspected terrorists.
AP reported on September 17th that "NATO-led peacekeepers in Kosovo have released two of five Algerians detained on suspicion of terrorism...." The suspects were "detained after they were caught filming outside Camp Monteith," a U.S. military base in Gnjilane. "The two men, detained August 21, were freed earlier this month after an investigation showed they did not pose a risk to the province’s stability," continued the report. Apparently, less attention was paid to whether they pose a threat to U.S. military and civilian personnel.
http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/2002/11-04-2002/insider/vo18no22_kosovo.htm
