Serbia put its troops on “combat alert” after heavily armed Kosovo police entered Serb-populated regions and made nearly two dozen arrests over alleged corruption on Tuesday.
Kosovo Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj confirmed the police action, saying on Twitter an “anti-smuggling and organised crime operation” was under way in northern Kosovo, which declared independence from Belgrade in 2008 after a bloody 1998-99 war that ended only after NATO
intervention.
Serbia does not recognise Kosovo’s 2008independence declaration.
Serbian state TV reported shots were heard and tear gas was fired as Kosovo’s special police “burst” into several northern villages and the town Mitrovica with armoured vehicles early in the morning.
The region bordering Serbia is 90 percent populated by Serbs, who refuse to be part of Kosovo.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said Kosovo police arrested 23 people, including Serbs, Bosnians and a Russian. He said he had seen video of the police firing “live ammunition” over the heads of unarmed Serbs, and said the operation was designed to intimidate minority Serbs in
Kosovo, whose population is mostly ethnic Albanians.
Vucic said he ordered soldiers near the border to be on “combat alert” to protect Serbs if tensions escalate.
“I guarantee you if an escalation of the conflict occurs, if an attack against the Serbian people occurs, Serbia will win,” he added.
But one of his opponents, right-wing politician Miroslav Aleksic, accused Vucic and his Kosovo counterparts of stirring up tensions as “theatre” aimed at shoring up public support for a plan to eventually recognise the former province’s independence.
