THE chief of military intelligence in Serbia and Montenegro today warned the al-Qaeda network and other terror groups were present in the region and planning to step up their activities. "We have information that al-Qaeda has its strongholds in Kosovo, the northern Albanian towns of Bajram Curri, Krume and Tropoje and that they are active in the western Macedonian towns of Tetovo, Kicevo and Gostivar," Colonel Momir Stojanovic told the state-run Tanjug news agency. The head of the Military Security Agency of Serbia-Montenegro’s army said "international terrorist activists" were trying to establish and strengthen links with "extremists and terrorists" in the Balkans, including the south Serbian province of Kosovo. Stojanovic said the activities of "extremists and terrorist organisations" were aimed at "creating an Islamic state in the Balkans" that would be "linked with Islamic countries of the Middle East".
Muslim extremists were "ideologically, organisationally and financially supported by some international terrorist organisations, extreme political circles in Saudi Arabia and other Islamic countries," he added. Stojanovic, appointed to the post last March, headed the Yugoslav army intelligence service in Kosovo during the 1998-99 conflict. A witness at the war crimes trial of former president Slobodan Milosevic in The Hague has pointed to Stojanovic as the officer who had ordered a mass killing of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo in reprisal for a murdered Serb officer. |