Intelligence agencies connected with mafia gangs and terrorists in the Balkans

Secret services are combating terrorism, but their parts which are in the mafia or within the terrorist core for high profits or “higher goals” work for terrorist groups. Inside terrorism is becoming a soft connection between the mafia and political and ethnic extremist organizations.

Emportal | Nov 26, 2008

Connection between secret services, the mafia groups and terrorists in the Western Balkans

In the western Balkans there is a connection between the secret services, national and international, and criminal cartels, which are, indirectly or directly, influenced by terrorist groups.

By Nikos Arvanites

The detention of three Germans in connection with a recent bomb attack on a European Union office in Pristina, Kosovo, has highlighted tensions over a plan to replace a nine-year UN presence with an EU mission and raised once more many question over the “New Kosovo”.

Last Saturday, a judge ordered the three suspects held for one month while prosecutors gather evidence for terrorism charges. The three are accused of carrying out a Nov. 14 dynamite attack that shattered glass windows at the EU office, but harmed no one.

The Pristina EXPRESS daily has published that three German citizens, suspected of placing a bomb in front of the seat of the International Civilian Office, are actually members of German secret service BND.

The paper reported that BND has admitted that some members of its have been arrested, but rejected the allegations that it was they who mounted the bomb attack.

Quoting its sources, the daily states that the arrested persons have ordinary and not diplomatic passports and that they have been in Kosovo for several months now.

Citing court documents, the Associated Press reported that the Kosovo prosecutors believe the Germans “intended to disrupt the bloc’s efforts to deploy its new police mission.”

Prosecutor Feti Tunuzliu alleged that the three suspects wanted to “hamper and hinder” the mission, according to documents reviewed by The Associated Press.

Tunuzliu wrote that one of the suspects threw 300 grams (0.6 pounds) of dynamite at the EU offices from a building across the street Nov. 14 as the two others kept watch.

But the BBC reported that the three detained men insist they were themselves investigating the blast site.

German and Kosovo media report that the men are German intelligence agents but officials in Berlin refuse to comment.

Lawyers for the detainees say the prosecution is seeking terrorism charges that carry a maximum 20-year sentence.

The German weekly Der Spiegel said the men worked for the German intelligence agency BND, and that they told investigators they had been examining the scene of the explosion, but had not been involved in it.

The Christian Science Monitor reported, and later brokered a deal with Serbia over the deployment of a replacement EU mission. But now some in Kosovo reject the deal as an affront to the nation’s fledgling sovereignty.

A Reuters report noted that the Nov. 14 attack came four days after Kosovo leaders rejected the UN deal.

The AP reported that Kosovo can’t accept Serbia’s terms for the EU mission’s deployment.

The Bundestag should be officially informed on Thursday about the arrests of three alleged agents of the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) in Kosovo, Radio Deutsche Welle said on Monday, stressing that German public security experts believe Albanian extremists are in fact behind the relevant bomb attack in Pristina.

All the circumstances involving this incident should be presented at a session of the German parliament’s intelligence oversight committee by BND Chief Ernst Uhrlau.

Politicians in Berlin also doubt that any German intelligence service members in Kosovo actually took part in the bomb attack on November 14 which resulted in material damages alone, Deutsche Welle said.

“Such things are beyond my imagination. It seems that these are arbitrary accusations, but they must be looked into, even as such,” Bundestag’s Supervisory Committee President, Social Democratic Party MP Thomas Oppermann said.

“It all smacks strongly of a plot that could be connected with the Kosovo government and its interests, and perhaps also with other (foreign) intelligence services or the local judiciary,” Committee member, Green Party MP Hans-Christian Stroebele said.

Secret services are combating terrorism, but their parts which are in the mafia or in the terrorist core for high profits or “higher goals” work for terrorist groups.

Inside terrorism is becoming a soft connection between the mafia and political and ethnic extremist organizations. The core activity of the influence of the mafia and terrorists is concentrated in the Albanian political movement, which skillfully uses the mafia as its allies and partners aiming at the independent Kosovo and great-Albanian politics in the western Balkans.

The mafia has a major influence in the western Balkans and represents a “branch of economy” with a substantial profit. Included in the mafia affairs is the majority of “soldiers” and those considered to be “manpower”. Secret services are waging a global war against organized crime, but at the same time they are part of the system. The mafia gives support to financing or ethnic terrorism in the other logistics.

In Kosovo and Metohija there is the strongest connection between the mafia and separatist movement on the one hand, and terrorist groups on the other.

The secret service of Kosovo, which is in the process of establishment, largely builds on the former police structures of Albanians that were educated till 1991 and after 1991 in Albania.

The Albanian movement has a big influence on the network of secret services in Kosovo and Metohija (over 20), which are, in various ways, present in the country with their interests and goals.

The core activity of the influence of the mafia and terrorists is concentrated in the Albanian political movement, which skillfully uses the mafia as its allies and partners aimed at the independent Kosovo and great-Albanian politics in the western Balkans.

The strategy for combating terrorism is to focus on organized crime and the reform of secret services whose information is of importance to the mafia that uses it excessively because of the connection.