NATO builds forces in Kosovo as US worries about Serbian troop buildup in region

NATO announced on Friday (September 29) that it was strengthening its military presence in Kosovo after four people were killed in a shooting at the weekend and the United States expressed concern over the buildup of Serbian forces on along the border of their former territory.

Kosovo’s prime minister welcomed NATO’s decision, saying Sunday’s attack, involving around 30 gunmen, is a new sign that Serbia wants to destabilize its former southern province with the help of its ally Russia.

“These people want to go back in time,” Prime Minister Albin Kurti told The Associated Press. “They’re looking for a time machine. They want to go back 30 years. But that’s not going to happen.”

NATO launched a bombing campaign on Serbian positions to end the crackdown on Kosovo Albanian separatists and end their 1998-99 war. The war left around 10,000 people dead, most of them Kosovo Albanians.

Earlier on Friday, Kosovo police raided several localities in a Serb-dominated northern region of the country, where weekend violence claimed the lives of a Kosovo police officer and three Serbian insurgents, escalating tensions to a boiling point.

Police said in a statement they were carrying out searches at five locations in three municipalities linked to Sunday’s shooting in the northern Kosovo village of Banjska. This is one of the worst clashes since the separation of Kosovo from Serbia in 2008. Belgrade refuses to recognize its independence.

NATO, which leads the KFOR peacekeeping force, said Friday that additional British troops would be placed under KFOR command “if necessary, to address the current situation.”

“We need NATO because the border with Serbia is very long and the Serbian army has recently strengthened its capabilities and has a lot of military equipment from both the Russian Federation and the China,” Kurti said.

In Sunday’s attack, around 30 masked men opened fire on a police patrol near Banjska before forcing the doors of a Serbian Orthodox monastery and barricading themselves inside with the priests and visiting pilgrims. The ensuing 12-hour shootout left a police officer and three gunmen dead.

John Kirby, a spokesman for the White House National Security Council, said the attack was “well coordinated and planned,” adding that the size of the weapons cache discovered in the attack threatened the security of Kosovar officials and international personnel, including NATO troops.

“Everyone who participated in the planning and execution of this attack must be brought to justice,” he said.

Kirby also said U.S. officials were monitoring a large deployment of Serbian troops along the border with Kosovo, describing it as an “unprecedented display of advanced Serbian artillery, tanks and mechanized infantry units “.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has denied any accumulation.

In another interview with the AP, Kosovo President Vlosa Osmani welcomed NATO’s decision to strengthen its forces. Osmani and Kurti described the weekend’s violence as an “act of aggression” against Kosovo and demanded that Serbia be punished.

Osmani said the international community must not only condemn the attack “but also, after completing its internal procedures for confirming the information, take clear measures against Serbia.”

Osmani called Vucic a “proxy” of his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin: “And it is now very clear to everyone, even to those who doubted it, that he is implementing Russia’s plan in the Western Balkans. “

In Belgrade, Vucic said he spoke on the phone with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and that they “agreed on the need for de-escalation” as well as a greater role for KFOR.

NATO’s decision to strengthen KFOR is “good news,” Vucic said. He insisted that at least one of the three Serbs killed had been “liquidated” after surrendering and promised that Serbia would “bring the cold-blooded killers to justice.” The insurgents, he said, are ordinary people who rebelled to “protect their homes.”

“I will not call Serbs terrorists,” Vucic said. “I don’t care what other people think.” European Union officials called the weekend’s events a “terrorist attack.”

The violence further increased tensions in the Balkan region as European and U.S. officials struggled to negotiate a deal to normalize relations between Serbia and Kosovo.

According to Serbian media, Kosovo police on Friday raided a hospital and a restaurant in the Serb-majority part of the city of Mitrovica, as well as in other towns. The local Kossev news agency reported that police had confiscated several vehicles.

After the weekend attack, Kosovo police said they found huge quantities of weapons and equipment, suggesting insurgents had been planning a wider operation. Some of the vehicles used bore KFOR insignia.

A few hundred soldiers from the 1st British battalion of the Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment are now at the disposal of KFOR. About 500 troops were deployed from Turkey in June after dozens of KFOR members were injured during riots in northern Kosovo.

“We will always continue to ensure that our commander has the resources and flexibility necessary for KFOR to fulfill its mandate,” said NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. “We stand ready to make further adjustments to KFOR’s posture if necessary.”

KFOR currently has approximately 4,500 troops from 27 NATO and partner countries.

Part of the mission’s work has been to deter hostility or threats from Serbian forces against Kosovo. KFOR said it closely monitored the weekend’s developments, but did not intervene because it did not receive any requests from Kosovo authorities.

On Thursday, Kosovo Interior Minister Xhelal Sveçla claimed in an AP interview that Serbia operated training camps for insurgents and said Kosovo authorities were also investigating the involvement of Russia in violence.

There is concern in the West that Russia, acting through Serbia, wants to destabilize the Balkans and distract at least some attention from Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Russia has expressed support for Serbia during the clashes, accusing the West of failing to protect Kosovo’s Serbs.