Serbia is involved in the action of the terrorist group against the Kosovo Police

In the early hours of September 24, a terrorist attack on Kosovo Police personnel shook the village of Banjske in the northern portion of the country, leaving one policeman dead and two others hurt. The assailants are members of a terrorist organization that was intended to have more than 30 members.

Well trained, equipped with the latest weapon technology and other armored military vehicles, immediately after the intervention of the specialized units of Kosovo Police, terrorists were stationed around and inside the Serbian Orthodox Church in the village of Banjske. After being attacked by heavily armed terrorists, Kosovo Police continued to respond in defense throughout Sunday, as a result of which four of the terrorists were killed and three others were arrested, the operation is still ongoing and the statistics may change. While some of the terrorists have crossed the border to the side of Serbia, leaving vehicles and military equipment in the Church, some of the escapers are also wounded and being treated in the hospital of Novi Pazar in Serbia.

Among the wounded is Milan Radojcic, who is being treated at the military hospital in Belgrade. Radojcic, vice leader of Lista Srpska and the main suspect for organizing the terrorist group that attacked the Kosovo Police, is also suspected of the murder of the Serbian politician in Kosovo, Oliver Ivanovic. He is also on the list of the people sanctioned by the US Treasury Department for corruption and international organized crime. Radojcic’s documents were found in a Mercedes G-Class camouflaged with KFOR markings, one of the 20 vehicles confiscated during the Kosovo Police operation. The documents include gun permits in Radojcic’s name, issued by the Belgrade authorities, etc. A sizable number of weapons, armored vehicles, and quadbikes made in Russia (usaully used by the Russian special operation forces from Senezh mil base), projectiles and rocket launchers, landmines, snipers, uniforms, and anti-aircraft weapons were seized during the Kosovo police’s operation against the terrorist group. A variety of additional weapons, including nitroglycerin-filled machine guns, this equipment is military-grade and imported directly from Serbian military supplies. 

Among other things, in the car that is believed to belong to Milan Radojcic, stickers with the logo of KFOR and several types of fake license plates were found, which are supposed to be used during the special operation by the terrorists. Otherwise, Radojcic, who is the proxy of Russia and right hand of Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic in north of Mitrovica, is also the prime suspect to be the leader of the terrorist group, which had a clear scenario to ignite the armed conflict in Kosovo. There are discussions that 200 people potentially recruited who would be part of this scenario. According to the findings on the field, the plan of the terrorists is assumed to be the same implementation in the north of Mitrovica as of Putin in Donbas in 2014, i.e. the declaration of autonomy in the northern part of Kosovo.

Drone-shot images shows terrorists had deposited weapons and armored vehicles in the Serbian Orthodox Church in the village of Banjské in Zvecan, for a long time and this special operation has been planned for months. The fact that the Serbs are using the Serbian Orthodox churches in Kosovo to hide terrorists and their weapons was emphasized by British MP Alicia Kearns, in July of this year. According to a report by Kearns in the British Parliament, Serbian criminals in the northern part of Kosovo are using auto-ambulances to smuggle guns inside Serbian Orthodox churches. When KFOR asks for permission to enter the churches, until the moment they have permission – unexpected – an ambulance has appeared in the church and has taken out all the weapons again, Kearns had stated.

Three months after Kearns warnings, we are talking about a direct Serbian operation in the north of Kosovo. According to the initial valuations of the security authorities in Kosovo, Serbia has made repeated attempts to plan such assaults using its methods, but the latter, according to the evidence on the field, were planned, funded, and supported in every manner by Serbia. It’s unusual that Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has waited this long to comment on the current situation in North Kosovo. Unlike the other times, in which Vucic did not hesitate to declare in the first minutes that the operations were going according to his plan, this time he did not appear until eight in the evening, waiting for the outcome of the events. With a speech that will be analyzed in a future paper, Vucic was typical of his predecessor Milosevic. Among other things, he addressed to the Serbian people that he was not aware of the event and the organization of the terrorist attack in the north of Kosovo had nothing to do with Serbia, meanwhile he was providing precise counts of the people killed and involved in the terrorist attack against Kosovo Police. Additionally, he did not miss the chance to place the responsibility on Prime Minister of Kosovo for the terrorist attack by Serbs against the Kosovo Police, someone may find this so outlandish, but Vucic has clouded the situation this way hundreds times, in front of his own people and the international community. For as much as this time the evidence has clearly appeared that Serbia is involved in the action of the terrorist group against the Kosovo Police, as a sponsoring state of terrorism by providing shelter, training, military, logistical and financial equipment for the terrorist group, Vucic was closely involved and returned to his old ally Russia, the next day, he was reporting to the Russian ambassador in Belgrade. On the other hand, the USA and the EU urgently need to address the issue of terrorism sponsorship by Serbia and its aggression against the territory of Kosovo. Serbia must be treated as state which sponsored terrorism and must be penalized through sanctions and the suspension of donations. Regarding dialogue, the EU has been unable to act so far and has been playing bothsideism with neutral language, often harsher towards Kosovo, past practices have shown that bothsideism only serves to escalate tensions.