Post by radovic on Dec 7, 2007 12:57:08 GMT -5
Gunmen Stop Bus in Kosovo
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Decrease text size07 December 2007 Gracanica _ Masked gunmen stopped a bus with Serb commuters on their way to the Kosovo capital, Pristina, and took the vehicle's ignition keys from the driver, police told Balkan Insight Friday.
According to Kosovo police spokesman, Veton Elshani, the masked gunmen stopped the bus early on Thursday on the road near Kosovo's north-eastern town of Podujevo.
"Nobody was hurt, and we do not have any indications that the attack was ethnically motivated," Elshani told Balkan Insight.
The bus was travelling from Serbia to Pristina and the southern town of Dragas which is also home to the ethnic Gorani minority on Muslim Slavs.
According to Serbian media, the driver and passengers described the attackers as members of the Albanian National Army, ANA, a group that has been branded a terrorist organisation by the UN Mission in Kosovo, UNMIK.
Their account could not be independently verified.
Hamdija Retkoceri, the director of the Adio Tours company that owns the bus, said that the incident might be related to "somebody from a competing company trying to scare away our drivers and passengers."
This is the third attack on buses connecting Pristina with Belgrade, used both by Kosovo Serbs and Albanians.
Earlier this year a fire bomb was hurled at a bus, and a year ago assailants fired a rocked propelled grenade. There were no injuries in either of the incidents.
Tensions are rising in Kosovo ahead of Monday’s deadline for international mediators in talks over the province's long-term status to submit their report to the United Nations Secretary-General.
The ethnic Albanian majority in Kosovo wants full independence from Serbia which is staunchly opposed to that. Talks over Kosovo's future status ended in deadlock last month
Email a friend
Save article
Print article
Increase text size
Decrease text size07 December 2007 Gracanica _ Masked gunmen stopped a bus with Serb commuters on their way to the Kosovo capital, Pristina, and took the vehicle's ignition keys from the driver, police told Balkan Insight Friday.
According to Kosovo police spokesman, Veton Elshani, the masked gunmen stopped the bus early on Thursday on the road near Kosovo's north-eastern town of Podujevo.
"Nobody was hurt, and we do not have any indications that the attack was ethnically motivated," Elshani told Balkan Insight.
The bus was travelling from Serbia to Pristina and the southern town of Dragas which is also home to the ethnic Gorani minority on Muslim Slavs.
According to Serbian media, the driver and passengers described the attackers as members of the Albanian National Army, ANA, a group that has been branded a terrorist organisation by the UN Mission in Kosovo, UNMIK.
Their account could not be independently verified.
Hamdija Retkoceri, the director of the Adio Tours company that owns the bus, said that the incident might be related to "somebody from a competing company trying to scare away our drivers and passengers."
This is the third attack on buses connecting Pristina with Belgrade, used both by Kosovo Serbs and Albanians.
Earlier this year a fire bomb was hurled at a bus, and a year ago assailants fired a rocked propelled grenade. There were no injuries in either of the incidents.
Tensions are rising in Kosovo ahead of Monday’s deadline for international mediators in talks over the province's long-term status to submit their report to the United Nations Secretary-General.
The ethnic Albanian majority in Kosovo wants full independence from Serbia which is staunchly opposed to that. Talks over Kosovo's future status ended in deadlock last month