American Council for Kosovo - Islamic Terror in Kosovo

Man Sentenced in Fort Dix Plot Case

CAMDEN, N.J. (AP) - A man who admitted letting a group of accused terror-plotters shoot his guns at a firing range was sentenced to 20 months in prison Monday.

U.S. District Judge Robert Kugler said Agron Abdullahu deserved more than the 10 to 16 months that sentencing guidelines call for because he knew the men who were talking about violence against Americans.

"I am convinced that he is not as innocent as he'd like us to believe," Kugler said before imposing the sentence. "This is not a common, ordinary, technical violation of the law."

But the sentence was less than half the five-year maximum allowed. With time served and credit for good behavior, it's likely Abdullahu will be free before the end of the year. He could face deportation.

Abdullahu said he was sorry he let his friends use his weapons at a firing range in the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania in 2006 and 2007. He said he discounted their tough talk about hurting America.

"Not at any moment did I think they were actually going to do what they said," he told the judge.

Abdullahu, 25, was arrested last May with five men who are charged with conspiring to kill soldiers on Fort Dix.

Authorities said the other men - all of them, like Abdullahu, foreign-born Muslims in their 20s - were planning to sneak onto Fort Dix and attack soldiers there. No attack occurred at the New Jersey base, which is used mainly to train reservists heading to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Though the group was dubbed "The Fort Dix Six," Abdullahu, a supermarket baker whose ethnic Albanian family escaped Kosovo when he was a teenager, always stood out. While the others are on track for a trial in the fall for charges including conspiracy to murder military personnel and attempted murder, Abdullahu pleaded guilty last year to a single, lesser charge.

Abdullahu was charged with letting the brothers Dritan, Eljvir and Shain Duka shoot two weapons that he owned legally. It is a crime to allow illegal immigrants like the Duka brothers to possess guns.

Hillary Must Repudiate Support for Extremists

Hillary Clinton has made a big mistake by taking on Reverend Wright and his congregation. Senator Clinton has opened the door to an examination of her own connections to extremist groups.

To be specific, Hillary Clinton and her husband Bill Clinton have long standing ties to extremist groups in the Balkans including Croatia's neo-Nazi groups.

For example, in 1995, the Croatian military, which was receiving extensive training and arms from the US, thanks to President Bill Clinton, set up a special battalion (400 personnel) for the training of right wing extremists from Germany and France. Moreover, the Croats assigned personnel from this battalion to serve with units of the Croatian Army (HV) in Bosnia in combat operations against the Bosnian Serbs and the Bosnian Muslims. While operating in Bosnia, these neo-Nazi members of Croatias special battalion committed war crimes against Serbs and Bosnians.

The Federal Prosecutor of West Germany, according to press accounts at the time, was very concerned about these atrocities and wrote a letter to Bill Clintons Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations, asking for an investigation. The Bill Clinton Administration refused.

After supporting Croatias large scale ethnic cleansing in Bosnia , the Clintons provided military and intelligence advisors as the Croatian government carried out large scale ethnic cleansing of the Serbs population in Croatia itself. This Croatian ethnic cleansing of 250,000 Serbs in the Krajina district was one of the worlds greatest war crimes. Indeed, the UN is now prosecuting three Croatian generals for war crimes based on this ethnic cleansing. The Clintons, however, have yet to be investigated for their support for Croatia in this tragic affair.

How should Senator Obama respond to this Clinton attack on Reverend Wright?

First, Senator Obama should ask for the Clintons to reveal the details of their own relationships with political extremists in Croatia and with Albanias Kosovo Liberation Army/KLA in Serbia. The KLA killed thousands of Serbian civilians in a terrorist national liberation campaign in 1999, a campaign endorsed by the Clintons.

Second, Senator Obama should call for the Clintons to repudiate their support for the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and for an independent state of Kosovo taken from Serbia. To fail to denounce the KLA for war crimes against the Serbs is to reward terrorism.

Third, Senator Obama should call upon Congress to repudiate Croatia and Kosovo in favor of closer US ties with Serbia and its allies Russia and China. This is a good time to break with Croatia, which is preparing to annex the Croatian areas of Bosnia-Hercegovina (B-H). Croatias power grab in B-H will collapse the fragile Bosnian state and could restart the civil war in Bosnia.

Fourth, Senator Obama should call upon US Jews, US WW II military veterans, and US leftist groups to repudiate the Croatian and Albanian extremists. To put this issue in basic terms, Serbia fought the Nazis and supported the US in WW II, and for that reason alone ar entitledcontinued US support. In contrast, the Croatians and Albanians supported Germany in WW II.

Fifth, Senator Obama shall call upon the Clintons to reveal the details of their cooperation with Senator McCain on behalf of Croatian extremists and the KLA. The Clintons and McCain have been in lockstep in support of Croatian and Albanian extremists for a decade or more. This Clinton-McCain collaboration with the Croatian and Albanian extremists is the real crime, not a few sermons on the part of Reverend Wright.

McCain Supports Radical Muslims in Kosovo

McCain, in his Wednesday speech, seemed to go out of his way to offend the Russian government, making it clear that he doesnt regard the regime there as a democracy.

If the media are on the lookout for gaffes by the presidential campaigns, they missed a big one on Wednesday, when Cindy McCain met with Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci in Kosovos capital Pristina, while her husband was giving a major foreign policy speech calling for new foundations for a stable and enduring peace. Kosovos declaration of independence, which McCain accepts and was implicitly recognized by Cindy McCains visit to Pristina, is a major threat to global peace and security. It could spark a U.S. war with Russia.

It may be asking too much, however, for the media to cover a gaffe like this. The Kosovo policy is a bipartisan blunder. For the liberal media, Iraq, where McCain differs with Hillary and Obama about the length of stay of the U.S. military, seems to be the only foreign policy issue worth talking about. But the U.S. faces other major problems.

We need to recall that the war against the former Yugoslavia was depicted by the liberal media as a worthwhile humanitarian intervention. But it was waged on the basis of Clinton Administration lies of a genocide being waged against Albanian Muslims in Kosovo, a province of Serbia. In fact, the Clinton Administrations NATO war against Yugoslavia probably cost more lives than were lost in the civil war in Kosovo. Serbian troops were forced to withdraw in exchange for an international guarantee that Serbia would retain sovereignty over Kosovo but the province would get substantial autonomy. The U.S. agreed to that, but that agreement was violated when the Bush Administration, with backing from McCain and Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, recently recognized Kosovos declaration of independence from Serbia.

Sending his wife to Kosovo confirms that McCain accepts Clintons fraudulent version of what happened there and that he agrees with Bushs solution, which can only make the situation worse.

Conservatives should contemplate what is happening here. McCain, who says he wants to wage a vigorous war against Islamic radicals worldwide, is prepared to let Muslim extremists come to power in Kosovo and even have their own sovereign state. This is itself a major gaffe. But McCain compounded it when he gave a speech urging the building of international structures for a durable peace, including strengthening NATO. This sounds good, except that McCain has to know that recognizing Kosovos independence has split Western nations and even NATO itself. It is a major foreign policy blunder that the next administration, Democrat or Republican, may never recover from. It represents a direct threat to the international order of nation-states. That is why many nations have not recognized this new state of Kosovo. They realize that Kosovos independence could spark other groups to wage wars against established regimes around the world.

This is not to say that some territories under the control of internationally recognized regimes do not deserve their independence. Tibet, under Chinese Communist occupation, deserves its freedom and sovereignty. And Taiwan should become an independent state as well. Chinas communist rulers, who opposed Kosovos independence because they fear it could serve as a precedent for Tibet and Taiwan, are the illegitimate ones. The regime in Beijing should be undermined. But China, which supplies so many of our products and invests so much in our economy, is too big an adversary to pick a fight with. This shows the fallacy of claims of the U.S. being a superpower. We are at the mercy of China, and the presidential candidates of both major political parties know it. Only a commentator like Lou Dobbs of CNN dares to address the controversy on a regular basis.

Atrocities occurred on all sides as the former Yugoslavia went through disintegration. But Serbia was involved in trying to hold the former Yugoslavia together when outside powers, including various Arab and Muslim states, were trying to carve the nation up. Kosovos Muslims, who are a majority, may not be as radical as those in other Arab states. But wait until the radical Mosques that are being established around the territory, with the financial assistance of Saudi Arabia, begin to exert their influence on the next generation. They wont be waving American flags out of gratitude for NATO waging war on Serbia. Meanwhile, many Christian churches In Kosovo have been destroyed, and many Serbs, who are Christians, have fled the province. No wonder Serbian demonstrators recently burned the U.S. embassy there. And yet McCain says he wants to repair Americas bad image in the rest of the world. Start with reversing the disastrous Kosovo policy, Senator McCain.

Conservatives should be concerned about the Kosovo policy for another reason. In his Wednesday speech to the World Affairs Council, McCain talked about the security of the state of Israel. He doesnt seem to realize that recognition of Kosovo is a precedent for the creation of another Muslim state, Palestine, in the heart of the Middle East, which could end up being just as much of a threat to the Jewish state as a nuclear Iran. Israeli analysts have recognized this threat. They know that Kosovo is to Serbia what Jerusalem is to Israel. Bush, of course, is the first U.S. president to campaign for the creation of an Arab/Muslim Palestinian state. He encouraged the elections that brought the terrorist group Hamas to power in the Palestinian territories. Does McCain favor this suicidal approach for the state of Israel? Or does Israels security lie in asserting its own sovereignty and building a border fence? McCain, of course, seems to have an aversion to border fences, at least when they are on the U.S. southern border.

Hillary Clinton was accused of lying about her visit to Bosnia when she was First Lady. The more important controversy is why the U.S. was militarily involved in Bosnia in the first place. The record shows that her husband approved the shipment of Iranian arms to the Bosnia Muslims so they could fight the Christian Serbs. Clinton then expanded that policy to helping the Muslims in Kosovo. So the Iranian influence that McCain warned about in his World Affairs Council speech has already been brought into the Balkans by the Clintons, in a policy that he supported all along.

If you have noticed the evidence that the Arab/Muslim bloc of nations benefited from the Clinton policy in the former Yugoslavia, then you have grasped an essential truth about what has led to the current precarious state of affairs. It should be noted that Osama bin Laden, who was accused of supporting the Muslim extremists in Bosnia and Kosovo, would go on to order an attack on the U.S. on 9/11, killing nearly 3,000 of our fellow citizens. So he is clearly not grateful for the U.S. helping his Muslim brothers.

The lesson, which McCain says he recognizes in Iraq, is that the terrorists cannot be appeased. But he wants to appease the Muslim extremists, backed by bin Laden, in Kosovo.

The mystery is why President Bush, who authorized our soldiers to fight Muslim extremists in Iraq, embarked on this policy to accommodate them in Kosovo, and why McCain backs this wrong-headed approach. Some may see a conspiracy in this, but I prefer the stupidity theory of history. I dont think our foreign policy elites, and the politicians they control, are that smart about what constitutes the national security interest of the U.S. Bush may be under the manipulation of career bureaucrats in the State Department. They seem to have an inordinate influence on McCain as well.

Since the Democrats wont quarrel with McCain or Bush on this unfolding catastrophe, it is up to what used to be called an adversary press to raise this uncomfortable foreign policy problem. It is an emergency because another war could be on the horizon. This adversary press now includes, more than ever, conservative commentators and bloggers. But some of those blogs seem to be running more and more McCain for President advertisements. This is a bad sign.

McCain, in his Wednesday speech, seemed to go out of his way to offend the Russian government, making it clear that he doesnt regard the regime there as a democracy. He even wants to exclude Russia from the G-8 group. Russia, McCain said, does not qualify as a member of what he proposes as a global League of Democracies. But how can democracies survive if their countries face dismemberment by groups of nations and alliances acting outside of established and acceptable modes of conduct? How does it benefit the U.S. to increase the membership of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) by adding states such as Bosnia and Kosovo?

Russia, which is promising to go to the aid of the Serbs remaining in Kosovo, has recognized the danger to its own territorial integrity. It doesnt want to see Chechnya, another potential member of the OIC, inspired to more violence in order to attract recognition as an independent Muslim state like Kosovo. A war with NATO forces in Kosovo cannot be ruled out.

Then the situation may get some serious media attention.

If foreign policy is McCains strong suit, we are in serious trouble. His policy is the same as that of Democrats Hillary and Obama. And yet McCain says that Russia has a deficit of democracy.

More Kosovo follies

When linking arms with the Arab and Muslim world, official Washington is keen to point out Kosovo would be a Muslim state. But of course, if anyone points out an independent Muslim Kosovo might be a bad idea, he is whipping up "Islamophobia."

Says the U.S. envoy to Kosovo, Ambassador Frank G. Wisner: "To be able to secure a Muslim-majority state inside the European whole is a terrific signal that the Muslim world and the non-Muslim word can live side by side in peace and cooperation, one with the other."

That is, unless Kosovo becomes a jihad base in Europe, and proves just the opposite. And to that end, President Bush has just authorized arming our newest Islamic prot�g�.

From the Washington Times's Embassy Row (thanks to James Jatras):

The U.S. envoy to Kosovo is urging Arab governments to invest in Europe's newest Muslim-majority nation.
Ambassador Frank G. Wisner called on the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) to build on its statement of support issued after Kosovo declared independence from Serbia on Feb. 17.

"I think Kosovars are ready for that and want it," Mr. Wisner told America.gov, a U.S. State Department Web site.

Mr. Wisner, a former ambassador to India, the Philippines and Zambia, as well as to the OIC, argued that Kosovo is a good place for foreign investment.

"It's a good investment in the future," he said. "It's a profitable investment in terms of the eventual economic evolution of southeastern Europe, and I hope a strong economic signal will accompany a political signal."

He argued that the creation of the Kosovo republic has implications beyond Europe.

"To be able to secure a Muslim-majority state inside the European whole is a terrific signal that the Muslim world and the non-Muslim word can live side by side in peace and cooperation, one with the other," he said.

"I believe that for most of the Muslim world, it's very important that one looks at [Kosovo] as a matter of justice."

So far, however, Kosovo's declaration of independence has sparked rioting from Serbs, who consider the ancient province part of Serbia's historical heritage. Russia, Serbia's main ally, has criticized the United States and other nations for recognizing Kosovo.

Kosovar militants rebelled against Serbian domination in 1999 but were crushed by a fierce Serbian counteroffensive that led to charges of "ethnic cleansing" against Kosovars and the intervention of NATO forces. Since 2004, Kosovo was administered by the United Nations.

Yet Another American Soldier Speaks Out, and UPI Gets Smarter

This past week, a well-circulated article titled 'Kosovo Catastrophe' in Human Events magazine, written by a Martin Sieff, included the following:

It is hardly a conservative policy to support the establishment of an Islamist state on the European continent, turn a blind eye to the well-documented persecution of an ancient Christian community, engage in a Woodrow Wilson-style passion for nation building and follow in the footsteps of Bill Clinton. Yet that is what the United States has done by recognizing the independence of Kosovo.

Kosovo is the ancient heartland of the Serbian people going back to the dawn of their history. It certainly had a Muslim ethnic Albanian majority before Clinton and his Secretary of State Madeline Albright bombed Belgrade back in 1999 in order to force the Serbs to cede its autonomy. Since then the Albanian Muslim majority has become overwhelming and had has run rampant over the ancient Christian Serb community.

Clinton and Albright's policy had other far-reaching consequences. They established a very novel and dangerous principle whereby long-established borders could be redrawn and long-established nations dismembered with U.S. support on the principle that a disaffected national minority in a single province refused to accept the overall rule of the state. These were the same Clinton policymakers�who could not pay any attention to the rise of al-Qaeda as a serious threat to American national security and lives around the world�

Like the rest of the mainstream, alternative and blog media alike, Human Events doesn't generally pay attention to the Balkans, but when it has done so, it's been the rare publication to be on the correct side of the Kosovo issue. I first noticed this with a 2006 article titled 'Will U.S. Back Islamo-Fascist State in Europe?'

In addition to the unequivocal tone which Sieff is to be commended for using in the article, I bring up the piece for two reasons. First, and most important, is a comment picked up by the always sharp Nebojsa Malic, posted by a soldier who had done two tours in Kosovo:

'One comment,' writes Malic, 'on the bottom of the first page, caught my eye. I reproduce it here, because there is no direct link to it. It is from PaulAndrewKirk of Redmond, Wa.':

I have served two tours in Kosovo with the US Military and I can tell you the following as factual:

1. Almost all facets and levels of the provisional government in Kosovo are corrupt. In fact its the worst I've ever seen and I've had to deal with some pretty corrupt governments during my career.

2. Supervised independence or even full independence will not improve the miserable lives of the ordinary people of Kosovo. Partly because of what I've listed as fact '1?., and partly because it will take decades of imense amounts of foreign aid throughout economy in order to bring Kosovo into a functioning state that wouldn't need foreign assistance for its survival.

3. Ethnic cleansing is still a common occurence in Kosovo but, this time [sic: always been] its the ethnic Albanians ethnically cleansing the Serbs, Roma, Ashkali, Croatians, and Turk minorities through intimidation and at times outright force. I have personally witnessed this on many occasions.

4. No amount of foreign investment will provide enough jobs for the amount of unemployed people in Kosovo. The only way for Kosovo to maintain stability is for the EU to open its borders for an influx of foreign workers from Kosovo.

5. Islamic extremism is on the rise in Kosovo. KFOR soldiers have been attacked in Gjilan [sic: Gnjilane], Ferizaj, [sic: Urosevac] and Prizren when I was there. You just won't see or hear about it in the news. More Mosques have been built in Kosovo in the last five years than schools, roads, health clinics, and all other santitation project combined. Compliments of Muslim charities from the Middle East.

6. Mass graves of Kosovo Serbs and Roma have been found during my rotation and reported to the UN. Yet nothing has been done. Why? When we posed the question to our UN contacts in Pristina they replied: 'During the transitional stage of Kosovo this would be destablizing. We'll wait until there is a final resolution before we proceed.' All those journalists interested in a real story�start looking in around Novo Brdo.

7. The US Government along with key EU allies never had any intention of allowing Serbia a fair opportunity to negotiate with the Kosovar provisional government on the possibilities of a workable settlement that might have been permanent. I was party to a couple of meetings where US Government officials point blank told the Kosovar representatives that no matter what, the US will support independence and that going to these conferences in Vienna were just to give a favorable impression on the world opinion.

These are the facts. Some people might be outraged and some might be supprised however it really doesn't matter in the final analysis of all things considered. Superpowers will do what they want.

Kosovo independence will do nothing for stability of the region, in fact, the opposite will occur.

The Kosovar Albanians are now joyous they will have a new nation but, when all the partying ends and the dust clears, all that will exist is another backward, poverty stricken, underdeveloped, internationally protected country in an area of hostile neighbors thats todays news story and tomorrows breeding ground for extremism and resentment.

It's worth re-reading that comment a few times for anyone who is on the fence about which side of jihad he or she is on in this particular region.

The second reason I bring up the article by UPI 'defense editor' Sieff is to say that it's a refreshing, relieving change from an article that appeared on Sieff's United Press International in the wake of the Fort Dix plot discovery in May, titled 'No Balkan Nexus to Fort Dix Plot' and written by Sieff's colleague Shaun Waterman, though troublingly carrying Sieff's byline for a day before suddenly changing to Waterman's. The piece was one of those standard dismiss-the-Balkan-connection jobs that were dominating the papers at the time, and it singled out for ridicule one 'Julie Gorin' writing for a 'right-wing Web site' titled 'FrontPage.com', for stating that Ft. Dix was blowback for our Balkans policies. (Whoever this Julie Gorin is, and whatever the publication FrontPage.com is, I admire them both.) The writer, whether Sieff or Waterman, also faulted those complaining that media were using the term 'Yugoslavs' instead of naming the would-be culprits for what they were - Albanians whose cause we'd furthered.

The byline confusion may have been a simple mistake, or the two editors may have collaborated on the piece and there was an issue over who got the byline. Regardless, Sieff may want to have a chat with his colleague, who is supposed to be UPI's 'Homeland and National Security Editor' but who laughably tried to attribute significance to the fact that the three Albanian Duka brothers came from Macedonia rather than Kosovo. Which means that the 'security editor' isn't aware of the Kosovo-Macedonia connection, nor of the fact that our Kosovo action radicalized not only the Albanians of Kosovo, but of neighboring Sandzak, Montenegro and particularly Macedonia. (Albanians moved on like clockwork to destabilize Macedonia once they'd gotten Kosovo going, so that a country that had sheltered 400,000 Albanian refugees from Kosovo erupted into full-fledged civil war by 2001.) Quite simply, this 'national security editor' isn't aware of the pan-Albanian nature of the Balkan threat. Then again, that makes him eligible for a Cabinet position.

Whichever of the two men was the actual author of the piece, he also played up the secular nature of Albanian Muslims, and pointed the finger where many American friends of Albanians did: they were homegrown jihadists like any others, radicalized like anyone else via internet and other materials; after all, the piece pointed out, the three brothers had lived in the U.S. since childhood.

Sulejman Talovic, the Bosnian in Utah who shot nine Americans for Valentine's Day 2007, also lived here since childhood. The point is: we were sold that Bosnians and Albanians aren't nearly as susceptible to what their Arabic Muslim brothers are susceptible to, and that there isn't a tradition or history of 'that' kind of Islam in the Balkans (though check out the pre-Communist garb in Bosnia and Albania).

Even more bizarrely, the piece had the following sentence: 'As Jane's [Terrorism and Insurgency Monitor] points out, the affidavit does not mention any religious figure or other outside inspiration, and the men - according to a report in the International Herald Tribune - met in high school, not in a mosque.'

For some reason, the men meeting at school rather than a mosque appears significant to the UPI writer(s). Though the only thing this would emphasize to a logical person is that these people don't even need the benefit of a mosque to be radicalized. But the writer persisted along these lines, going on to quote author and Naval College professor John Schindler to '[recall] an aphorism of Albania's now-deceased communist dictator Enver Hoxha, to the effect that �the true religion of Albanians is Albanianism.''

A bit of trivia about the anti-religious, Stalinist former dictator Hoxha: In Albanian, his last name means 'imam'.

It's probably time that Americans started to familiarize themselves with the nature of 'Albanianism', and I plan to have a blog post on 'Albanianism vs. Islam' sometime. But one important point that the confused imposters to this issue miss is what Chris Deliso has written: radicals are radicals, and their radicalism is easily manipulated:

In Kosovo, the Wahhabis have cleverly concentrated on those areas historically most susceptible to radicalization and rugged individualism, areas such as Drenica, Skenderaj, Djakovica, and Decani, all strongholds of the former KLA. By concentrating on these centers of Albanian nationalism, the foreign Islamists are banking on the idea that any sort of extremism is just extremism and can simpy be redirected, like a stream, as and when needed. Indeed, as one active global charity, the Birmingham, UK-based Islamic Relief makes a point of noting, Skenderaj is 'a place with a long history of Albanian defiance of Serbian authority.' Eventually, hopes the foreign Islamic movement, that defiance can be redirected toward the West.

Media and policymakers in the West, however, have always blindly assumed that since the KLA and its supporters were once 'pro-American' any Albanian extremists remaining among them will always remain eminently controllable nationalists. However, as has been noted, the end of the national question in Kosovo is the beginning of the religious one�

So former KLA strongholds are emerging as, and morphing into, fundamentalist havens (which means ultimately al Qaeda havens). This is what happens when radicalism of any kind, even if benignly rooted in Serb-hatred, is supported and encouraged by the West. The following development, reported this past fall, was an apt illustration of such a phenomenon:

Fatmire Jashari, 18, was suspended [for wearing a headscarf] from her high school in the central Kosovar town of Srbica - a former stronghold of the now-disbanded Kosovo Liberation Army, the guerrilla group that fought Serb forces in the 1998-1999 war� 'I hope I won't be pushed to choose between the two,' she said. 'But if I am, I will choose the headscarf.'� 'It was easy to proclaim adherence to the democratic principles of the West in during the repression of the Serb regime,' said Dukagjin Gorani, an ethnic Albanian commentator. 'But when the West actually came to Kosovo, people started going to mosques. This will not necessarily make Kosovo a religious state, but it will certainly start a heated debate on what it should be.'

I'll close with another illustration of the symbiotic relationship between the greater Islamic threat and that harmless 'secular' 'Albanianism', again from Deliso's The Coming Balkan Caliphate:

The terrified Macedonian and Serbian residents of these [Macedonian] villages, mostly elderly people, were forced to flee south to the city of Kumanovo. Some stated afterwards that long-bearded, non-Albanian foreign fighters had tortured them�Throughout the fighting, jihadis were also penetrating Macedonia from the other, western front in Tetovo and reportedly had connections with Kosovo Albanian officials such as Daut Haradinaj, chief of general staff of the Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC) and brother of ex-KLA leader Ramush Haradinaj, according to other Macedonian military sources. On April 28, 2001, a Macedonian Army patrol of nine soldiers was ambushed and massacred near the Tetovo-area village of Vejce. The only survivor attested that mjuahedin 'with long beards and knives�conducted the massacre to its gruesome end, killing only one person by shooting, and cut to pieces or burned alive the rest.' An NLA [the Albanian National Liberation Army] commander confirmed this to Canadian war reporter Scott Taylor�.This commander and other NLA fighters had fought in Chechnya and Bosnia, and attested the presence of mujahedin in Macedonia.

Tasked with raising war funds from Muslims in Europe was a well-traveled, 50-year-old Albanian imam, Jakup Asipi, who hailed from the capital of the so-called 'free zone,' muddy Slupcane. Beloved by Albanians as a fatherly moral authority, and feared by Macedonians who considered him a radical Islamist, Asipi had received clerical training in Egypt and developed strong contacts with Albanian Islamic communities in Europe, especially in Switzerland and in German cities such as Leverkusen. While the Macedonian media soon linked Asipi with the mujahedin, his friends and family would later deny that he had anything to do with Islamic fundamentalism, but was rather a nationalist who also happened to be a very devout Muslim. On January 7, 2006, Asipi, then head of the Kumanovo Islamic Community and candidte for the national leadership, died in a tragic car accident. Some 15,000 Albanians from around Europe, among them both NLA/KLA leaders and Islamic clerics, attended the funeral, held at a new NLA war memorial center above Slupcane.