By Peter Beaumont, Ed Vulliamy and Paul Beaver
http://www.observer.co.uk/
March 11, 2001
 

            The United States secretly supported the ethnic Albanian
            extremists now behind insurgencies in Macedonia and
            southern Serbia.
 
            The CIA encouraged former Kosovo Liberation Army
            fighters to launch a rebellion in southern Serbia in an
            effort to undermine the then Yugoslav President
            Slobodan Milosevic, according to senior European
            officers who served with the international peace-keeping
            force in Kosovo (K-For), as well as leading Macedonian
            and US sources.
 
            They accuse American forces with K-For of deliberately
            ignoring the massive smuggling of men and arms across
            Kosovo's borders.
 
            The accusations were made in a series of interviews by
            The Observer . They emerge as America has been forced
            into a rapid U-turn over its support for Albanian
            extremists in Kosovo seeking a 'Greater Kosovo' that
            would include Albanian communities in Serbia and
            Macedonia.
 
            In the past week ethnic Albanian guerrillas have
            intensified their campaign of attacks in the two areas,
            threatening a new war in the region which last week put
            US troops in the firing line in the Balkans for the first
            time.
 
            The accusations have led to tension in K-For between the
            European and US military missions. European officers
            are furious that the Ameri cans have allowed guerrilla
            armies in its sector to train, smuggle arms and launch
            attacks across two international borders.
 
            One European K-For battalion commander told The
            Observer yesterday: 'The CIA has been allowed to run
            riot in Kosovo with a private army designed to overthrow
            Slobodan Milosevic. Now he's gone the US State
            Department seems incapable of reining in its bastard
            army.'
 
            He added: 'Most of last year, there was a growing
            frustration with US support for the radical Albanians. US
            policy was and still is out of step with the other Nato
            allies.'
 
            The claim was backed by senior Macedonian officials in
            the capital, Skopje. 'What has been happening with the
            National Liberation Army [which has been responsible
            for a series of attacks on Macedonia's borders in recent
            weeks] and the UCPMB [its sister organisation in
            southern Serbia] is very similar to what happened when
            the KLA was launched in 1995-96,' said one.
 
            'I will say only this: the US intelligence agencies have not
            been honest here.'
 
            The claims were given extra credence from an
            unexpected source - Arben Xhafari, leader of
            Macedonia's main Albanian party who tried to prevent
            the crisis on the border igniting an ethnic civil war inside
            Macedonia itself.
 
            A US State Department official blamed the last
            administration. There had now been 'a shift of emphasis'.