Clinton Plans on Our Being the Airforce for a Terrorist Group in Kosovo

Who IS the KLA?

By: Mary Mostert, Analyst, Original Sources (www.originalsources.com)

February 24, 1999

On February 18th, at a Pentagon briefing on Kosovo Captain Mike Doubleday explained the "two paths with regard to Kosovo at this point." Both paths involve the United States taking sides in a civil war. Secretary Cohen signed a "deployment order which adds to the U.S. aircraft that are forward based in the European theater, and those aircraft included 12 F-117 stealth fighters, 10 EA-6B Prowlers, and a total of 29 refueling aircraft -- four KC-10 extenders and 25 KC-135 Stratotankers."

The purpose of this armada was to "move to the forward bases in Europe" and " join other aircraft, land-based, and also aircraft that are embarked in the aircraft carrier USS ENTERPRISE that are already over there" to be ready to bomb the Serbs. However, Captain Doubleday noted, "But there has been no final decision. And the reason for that is A, there's no agreement; and secondly, there is a list of requirements that the President has outlined and others have outlined which will have to be achieved before the deployment can go forward. So what is actually going to trigger any kind of a deployment is certainly a presidential decision."

A reporter asked:

Q: Mike, how can NATO move forward with the threat of airstrikes or the reality of airstrikes? If that happens, then the permissive environment or the voluntary compliance of the Serbs is broken, and airstrikes would then lead to a situation non-permissive, I would presume. Or is the United States hoping that it will become permissive if airstrikes are used? What I'm saying is, you're blowing your whole deal of getting a deal with Milosevic if you strike him, right?

A: At the outset I said that I think everybody in this building and elsewhere throughout the United States as well as Europe is interested in seeing an agreement that leads down the road for peace rather than down the road that leads to airstrikes.

But having said that, on the 30th of January NATO did indicate that it was prepared to take steps in the event that the talks failed and the Serbs were responsible for that.

In the intervening time what has happened, as I reported yesterday, is that the Serbs agreed to autonomy for the rebellious ethnic Albanians, but the ABANIANS balked. At that briefing less than a week ago a reporter anticipated just such an event and asked:

Q: Mike, presuming that the talks fail and we go into a mode where we're conducting airstrikes against Serb military targets, what will we do if the KLA used that situation to try to advance or enhance their position on the ground? Would we take some action to stop them as well?

A: Without forecasting exactly what's going to happen, we have said that we will withdraw support to the KLA if they are responsible for the failure of these talks.

Q: What about when, if Serbia is held responsible for the failure and we start hitting Serbian military targets and the KLA starts taking advantage of that by enhancing their position on the ground? What will we do? Hide and watch them?

A: I think that Secretary Cohen has made very clear that we are going to be very watchful that that kind of an occurrence does not happen, and we are not going to become an Air Force for the KLA.

Q: But he's asking what would you do if it did happen, if the KLA started --?

A: I am not going to speculate on what might occur for two reasons. One, I'm not sure this is going down that road, and I think it is not productive to forecast that kind of an outcome. And secondly, I don't think it is helpful for the United States or anybody else to lay out exactly what we are going to do.

I think in this case being a little ambiguous is exactly the way we want it to be.

Q: Can I just say, related to that -- today on the ground you've got Serb forces and tanks moving toward, I think, the border of Macedonia. You've got the KLA putting the Serbs in their rifle sights. You've got Serbian soldiers quoted as saying if airstrikes come, we're going to start hitting the rebels. So it may be a lot of tough talk, but there is potential for an explosion there if there's airstrikes.

Yesterday, on the floor of the Senate, Senator Bob Smith, Republican of New Hampshire also brought up the subject of the US Airforce being used by Clinton as the KLA's air force:

"I am going to do everything in my power to get a vote on this resolution. I want the Congress on record before we go into Kosovo. The fundamental question is whether the lives of American soldiers and sailors and marines and airmen are worth interfering in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation where there are no US interests. This is not Iraq where one nation invaded another nation. This is a case of a disaffected minority in a country revolting against its government.

"Yes, there is all kinds of killing, and yes, that's wrong. But that goes on in a lot of countries. You need an exit strategy. We need a strategy when we go in that says 'here's what we are going to do, here's how we are going to do it, here's when we are going to do it and here's how we are going to leave.' There is no such strategy.

"We are in essence becoming the Airforce for the KLA."

That's the second time in a week someone knowledgeable has indicated we are becoming the Airforce for the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). So, exactly WHO is the KLA?

Basically, they are a terrorist group created by Clinton's foreign policy at the Dayton Peace. The Federation of American Scientists, a fifty year old group founded by nuclear scientists to monitor world trouble spots, said:

"During the war in former Yugoslavia, over 5,000 ethnic Albanians fought together with Croat and Muslim military formations. When the policy of non-violent resistance failed to make any progress, some ethnic Albanians turned to violence. Rugova's position began to be undermined when the Kosovo Question was left off the agenda at the Dayton Peace talks in November 1995. Younger Kosovars increasingly began to ask why they should hold fast to nonviolence when the Bosnian Serbs were rewarded for their violence and brutality with their own quasi-state within Bosnia. The Kosovo Liberation Army -- KLA in English acronym or UCK in the Albanian acronym -- first appeared in Macedonia in 1992. In 1995 the beginnings of armed resistance to the Serbs appeared, when the KLA carried out isolated attacks on Serbian police. The KLA appeared for the first time in public in June 1996, assuming responsibility for a series of acts of sabotage committed against the police stations and policemen in Kosovo and Metohija. After these bombings, Serb authorities named it a terrorist organization. Since 1997 the Kosovo Liberation Army has conducted attacks on Serbian police and other officials. They did not attack Yugoslav Army military facilities, rather, their emphasis was ambushes of police patrols and attacks on Albanians who collaborated with Serbian authorities."

Now, were the Serbs wrong to call the KLA a terrorist group - when its mission was to kill the police and others who refused to support them? Didn't we consider the bombing of the Oklahoma City Federal Building an act of terrorism? How come that is terrorism if it occurs in America, but "freedom fighting" when it occurs in Yugoslavia? And, note, the reason why Milosevic brought in the army was to protect people in Kosovo from being murdered by the KLA.

" The Kosovo Liberation Army is not a unified military organization subordinated to a political party or civil authority, but rather functions as a guerrilla movement consisting of lightly armed fighters. However, its members carry visible insignia and execute the assignments of their command in a disciplined way. The KLA's strength has swelled from about 500 active members at the beginning of 1998 to a force of at least a few thousand men [though some estimates suggest that there are as many as 12,000 to 20,000 armed guerrillas]. The KLA is organized in small compartmentalized cells rather than a single large rebel movement. The KLA's strength is apparently divided between a maneuverable strike nucleus of a few hundred trained commandos, and the much larger number of locally organized members active throughout the region. The KLA typically performs actions in smaller groups, at times as few as three to five men.

"Many members of KLA units are professionally trained, and include former Yugoslav army soldiers. The group functions very professionally underground, due in part to fact that some of its leaders are former members of UDBA [Internal State Security Service], the army and the police.

"The Kosovo Liberation Army is alleged by Serbia to include about 1,000 foreign mercenaries from Albania, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Afghanistan, Bosnia and Herzegovina (Muslims) and Croatia. Among the mercenaries it is alleged that there also British and German instructors. Most of these mercenaries are said to be Albanian nationals, especially former Albanian army officers, policemen and members of the state security forces. According to Serbian accounts, the primary KLA training camps in Albania are Ljabinot near Tirana, Tropoja near the Yugoslav-Albanian border, Kuks and Bajram Curi near the Yugoslav-Albanian border. Serbia claims that these locations are also the headquarters for the command and units of the Albanian army and police for the northeastern part of Albania and the centers for recruiting followers of the overthrown Albanian president Sali Berisha. The KLA initially conducted hit-and-run attacks against the Serbian special forces police operating in the province. Typically, KLA units fire on Serbian patrols, trying to draw them into the woods where they will be ambushed."

Remember a few years ago when the Pentagon was helping another group of "freedom fighters" in Afghanistan by supplying them weapons - including stinger missiles? It was the final battle of the Soviet Union. The UN mediated an agreement in 1988 creating the "neutral" Afghan state. Afghan rebels rejected the pact as long as the Soviets were in the country. By 1992 15,000 Soviet soldiers had been killed plus 2 million Afghan people and eventually one of the so-called "freedom fighters" became leader of the now warring guerrilla groups. The well-known terrorist Bin Laden, who masterminded the bombing of two US Embassies in Africa helped finance the Afghan terrorists, as well as those Bosnia.

Apparently Clinton thinks he has enough of your tax dollars to make the same effort the USSR made in Afghanistan work for him in Kosovo. We become the Air Force for a group of guerilla fighters in a province half the size of New Jersey and send 4000 American soldiers over to stand between the KLA's 20,000 armed guerillas and Milosevic's Army. If Clinton is trying to pose as a "peacemaker" in this situation he ought not be so blatently one-sided. We are not bombing the Serbs today because it was the Kosovar Albanians who balked, making a fool of Madeline Albright and her bombing threats against the Serbs. There was not even a suggestion of bombing the KLA for ITS refusal to accept the Clinton dictated "solution" in Kosovar. European observers doubt that KLA will keep its word to "sign in two weeks."

And, the US Congress hasn't had a single thing to say about it. As Sen. Bob Smith said, while he and the rest of the Senate were tied up in conducting Clinton's impeachment trial, Clinton, without so much as a "what do you think?" to the Senate has taken over Congress' constitutional responsibility to wage war - in clear violation of the War Powers Act.

Sen. Bob Smith has sounded a warning in introducing a resolution on Kosovo, with Senator Kay Huchinson, Senator John Warner and Senator Arlen Spector supporting it.

To comment: mmostert@originalsources.com

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