Is Ahmeti putting Macedonia in danger of a Russian strike ? RUSSIAN COUNTER-TERRORISM TACTICS - cutting to the bone! Russian President Vladimir Putin is a former Soviet Intelligence officer with the KGB, and reached the rank of Colonel. He spent most of his foreign service in the then East Germany. When both communism and the Soviet Union fell apart, one of the major successor states to emerge, the Russian Federation transformed the KGB into the domestic intelligence service the FSB (Federalnaya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti Rossiyskoy Federatsii - Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation) and the external counterpart, SVR (Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki - Foreign Intelligence Service). Putin for a short period of time was the Director of the FSB in 1998-99 before becoming Prime Minister and later President. His reign has been marked with Russia flexing its military and political muscle on both the domestic and international stage, after the period of decline under President Boris Yeltsin. In 1985 a militant Islamic group in civil war torn Lebanon had taken four Soviet diplomats hostage. One was later killed. The KGB kidnapped a relative of a member of the Islamist group and then mailed his body parts, including his genitals, back to the group. Quick smart the 3 remaining Soviet diplomats were released. At the same time, a CIA officer William Buckley was kidnapped and tortured to death by Hezbollah, a group with links to Iran. The FSB has taken the same no nonsense approach as the KGB with its shoot first, ask questions later method of counter-terrorism. In the 2002 Moscow Theatre Hostage crisis and the 2004 Beslan school massacre, the FSBs Alpha Group went in all guns a blazing against Chechen Islamic fundamentalists. In August 2008 during the Beijing Olympics the Russian Army invaded neighbouring Georgia, a then potential member of NATO, in a limited war and with the West namely the United States, Georgias new ally, left unable to react. ALI AHMETIS RUSSIAN ROULETTE - PLAYING THE ISLAMIST CARD? Chris Deliso writes: In Macedonia’s brief war of 2001, directly abetted by Kosovo-based Albanian paramilitaries, the West again broadly if more quietly favored the rebels, who resorted to fundraising amongst foreign Islamist institutions and whose numbers also included a small number of veteran mujahedin. And the Western powers also allowed fundraising and personnel transfer sponsored by the Islamic world to be channeled through diaspora and charity networks in Germany, the US and Britain. (end quote) But the Euro-cool guys and gals in reality are secretly turned on by Albanian Alpha Males, tough guys and terrorists or romantic rebels such as Ali Ahmeti, the former Commander of the National Liberation Army (NLA) and now political king maker in Macedonias parliament. Ahmeti clearly understands this. He managed to package his ethnic Albanian uprising against the Macedonian state in 2001 as a cry for civil rights successfully winning over the West. By doing so he became a major political player and gaining a slice of the action, in which he missed out in Kosovo in the 1999 War backed by NATO and in the process putting rival ethnic Albanian party in Macedonia, DPAs nose out of joint. Macedonia had cooperated with NATO during the Kosovo War and took in many Kosovar Albanian refugees but later was rewarded with the 2001 war. Conservative Canadian thinker Mark Steyn in his book After America - Get ready for Armageddon,” identified this phenomenon--the Wests penchant for bad boys: There is a moral frivolity to the…generalised concerns for the planet. But it quickly advances to the next stage--a moral decadence that expresses itself by venerating those who will gladly kill them when they have served their purpose as useful idiots. Early in the 2001 war NATO-Secretary General Lord George Roberston called Ahmetis NLA murderous thugs but later changed his tune. In a 2001 interview with British academic and journalist Timothy Garton Ash, Ahmeti spelt out his course of action: Summarising what he told me, I would say that the now forty-two-year-old Ahmeti drew two main conclusions from the Kosovo war. First, you could win more by a few months of armed struggle than Albanian politicians had achieved in nearly a decade of peaceful politics. As in Kosovo, so in Macedonia. Second, that you could do this only if you got the West involved. That was the great tactical goal—and the great unknown. He told me that when the insurgency took off in February, “I knew that without the help of the West we couldn’t win. But we didn’t know how much they would help….” So he had to do everything possible to bring the West in. That meant being deliberately restrained in both their goals and their methods. This was Albanian Macedonia’s chance. This was Ali Ahmeti’s chance. As a clever bush lawyer, Ahmeti was preparing his defence in advance, should he be called to face charges of terrorism or war crimes. As he explained to Ash: “After a few minutes of preliminary conversation, I told Ahmeti that there was much discussion since September 11 [2001 attack on New York] about terrorism and that “some people would say you are a terrorist.” How would he answer them? As my question was translated, his bodyguards shifted slightly in their seats. Ahmeti replied calmly and quietly. I expected him to say words to the effect “No, I’m a freedom fighter,” but his response was more thoughtful. “That person cannot be a terrorist,” he said, “who wears an army badge, who has an objective for which he is fighting, who respects the Geneva Conventions and the Hague Tribunal, who acts in public with name and surname, and answers for everything he does…. Someone who is aiming for good reforms and democracy in the country—and that people should be equal before the law.” Danish academic Anne Marie Dinesen took a more sceptical view of Ahmetis motivation, highlighting the ethnic Albanians, who form about 20 to 25% of the population in the Republic of Macedonia, already had their rights protected by the Macedonian Constitution as approved by the European Union a decade before the Albanian insurgency erupted and more importantly Albanian parties since independence in 1991 from Yugoslavia had been members of successive Macedonian coalition governments. Ethnic Macedonians form 65% to 70% of the population of the Republic of Macedonia and are predominately Orthodox Christian. But to end the 2001 Albanian insurgency, the EU and NATO strong-armed the then Macedonian government and President Boris Trajkovski into signing the Ohrid Framework Agreement and permit Ahmeti to enter the Macedonian parliament with his own party, DUI (BDS) – Party for European Integration. DUI is a coalition partner in the current Macedonian government with nationalist VMRO-DPMNE. Paradoxically, VMRO-DPMNE was ruling government partner in coalition with DPA at the time of the 2001 War. The Islamists in Macedonia are working in the space created by the 2001 conflict which was started by Ahmeti. The long term danger to DUI and DPA comes from radical Islamists trying to subvert the parties. If elements within DUI or DPA were trying to exploit these radicals for their own political ends, then it is playing with fire. The radical Islamists are both anti-Albanian nationalist as well as anti-Macedonian nationalist. Their goal, as outlined in Chris Delisos book The Coming Balkan Caliphate, is a fundamentalist pan-Islamic entity. The concept of a Greater Albania, which would include Albania, Kosovo and Western Macedonia, is doomed to fail just as Slobodan Milosevics Greater Serbia. If a Greater Albanian ever eventuated it would be taken over by outside forces, which would not be too friendly to women. In one of the wikileaks documents dated 11 December 2008, Ahmetis lieutenants Abdulkadir Memedi was appointed the Secretary of Macedonian Foreign Affairs in 2008. In his powerful position he offered on behalf of the United States to combat “Islamic fundamentalism” in Macedonia if the country was turned into a federation, which in effect would mean the end of Macedonia. It would actually suit Islamic fundamentalists to have Macedonia carved up into a federation. teamuzunovmedia.blogspot.au/2013/08/russia-in-dis-putin-with-macedonia.html?m=1
Posted on: Sun, 20 Jul 2014 08:53:31 +0000
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