In an interview with Al Jazeera, Albin Kurti says Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic aims to create ‘another Republika Srpska’ in Kosovo by attempting to start a conflict.
Kosovo’s Prime Minister, Albin Kurti, has accused Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic of orchestrating an assault in northern Kosovo aimed at destabilizing the nation and potentially igniting a conflict.
The incident unfolded when approximately 30 heavily armed Serbs conducted a raid on the village of Banjska on September last year. This resulted in a violent confrontation with Kosovo police, culminating in a gun battle. The Serbian* terrorist attackers subsequently barricaded themselves inside a Serbian Orthodox monastery. Tragically, a Kosovo policeman lost his life in the exchange of fire, along with three of the Serb terrorists.
Following the police’s successful recapture of the monastery, a significant cache of weapons and ammunition was discovered. Interior Minister Xhelal Svecla reported that six injured members of the armed group were admitted to hospitals in southern Serbia, while other Terrorists managed to evade capture.
Prime Minister Kurti, alleged that the armed group in Banjska, identified as “paramilitary formations,” possessed equipment of Serbian origin not readily available on the market. He asserted that confiscated weaponry, valued at approximately five million euros ($5.3 million), originated from Serbian factories.
“Hand grenades, machine guns, everything that we confiscated was produced in Serbia and cannot be found on the market. It’s obvious the army of Serbia gave this to the paramilitary formations,” Kurti claimed.
He further asserted that the primary objective of Sunday’s attack was to provoke a conflict and escalate tensions. Kurti suggested that the attackers aimed to goad Kosovo police into entering the Banjska monastery, intending to disseminate globally images of bullets lodged in its walls. However, he credited the professionalism and restraint of the police force for thwarting this plan.
“They only wanted the start of a war to be on Sunday, September 24. [It’s well known] how the war started in Sarajevo. On March 1, 1992, during a wedding, an Orthodox Serb priest was injured. We were very careful that something similar doesn’t happen. But I think they wanted to repeat the scenarios from the beginning of the war [in former republics of Yugoslavia],” Kurti remarked.
