Kosovo’s prime minister on Sunday mentioned one police officer was killed and one other wounded in an assault he blamed on help from neighboring Serbia, growing tensions between the 2 former warfare foes at a fragile second of their European Union-facilitated dialogue to normalize ties.
Prime Minister Albin Kurti mentioned “masked professionals armed with heavy weapons” opened fireplace on a police patrol within the village of Banjska, in Leposavic municipality, 55 kilometers (35 miles) north of the capital Pristina at 3 a.m. (1 a.m. GMT).
Kosovo police mentioned two vans with out license plates blocked a bridge on the entrance to the village. Three police models have been despatched to unblock it however got here underneath fireplace from totally different positions with numerous weapons, together with hand grenades and bombs.
Police managed to push again the assault and take two injured law enforcement officials on the hospital in southern Mitrovica.
One of them was lifeless on arrival, docs mentioned. The situation of the opposite shouldn’t be life-threatening.
Speaking after a gathering of the nation’s Security Council Sunday, Kurti mentioned it was a “sad day” for Kosovo and named the lifeless police officer as Afrim Bunjaku.
The prime minister displayed a set of pictures which confirmed numerous four-wheel drive autos with out license plates and an armored personnel provider “which does not belong to the Kosovo police,” close to the Orthodox monastery in Banjska.
There was ongoing gunfire from what he described as a bunch of no less than 30 navy professionals, masked and closely armed.
“It is clear that these uniformed persons, at least 30, are an organized professional unit who have come to fight in Kosovo,” he mentioned, calling on them at hand themselves over to the Kosovar authorities.
Most of Kosovo’s ethnic Serb minority lives in 4 municipalities round Mitrovica, within the north.
Reports in Kosovo Serb media mentioned residents of Banjska have been woken by shootings and explosions within the evening.
“It was a real little war: first some gunfire, then silence, shootings, detonations,” Serbian Kossev news company quoted an unidentified resident as saying.
Serbian media mentioned each native roads and crossings with Serbia have been blocked.
“Organized crime, which is politically, financially and logistically supported from Belgrade, is attacking our state,” Kurti wrote on his Facebook web page.
Kosovar President Vjosa Osmani, who’s in New York on the United Nations General Assembly, denounced the killing.
“Such attacks testify once again to the destabilizing power of the criminal bands organized from Serbia which for a long time … are destabilizing Kosovo and the region,” she mentioned.
In an announcement, the U.S. ambassador in Pristina “strongly condemns the orchestrated, violent attacks on the Kosovo Police this morning,” including that “the Kosovo Police has full and legitimate responsibility for enforcing the rule of law according to the constitution and laws of Kosovo.”
Serbia’s parliamentary speaker Vladimir Orlic mentioned Kurti “was quick to blame the Serbs,” including that Kurti was the one who wished an “escalation.”
“He (Kurti) said it was some kind of organized action by professionals,” Orlic instructed native Prva tv station. “They must have been identified and he knows who they are and what they are, and everything is clear.”
Earlier this month, an EU-facilitated dialogue assembly in Brussels between Kurti and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic resulted in acrimony. Washington has totally supported the negotiations and the stance of the EU.
Source: www.dailysabah.com