Kosovo No Haven for Jihadists, Thaci Says

Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci has used Britain's left-of-centre Guardian newspaper to dismiss claims that Kosovo is harbouring radical Islamists.

In a Comment section article, the Kosovo leader says he has noted the number of foreign commentators on the far left and far right who continue to seek proof that US-led military intervention in Kosovo against the Serbian regime in 1999 was an error.

"Some of these voices depict Kosovo as a failed project of ‘neoliberal interventionism' and… attempt to use snippets of news from Kosovo to prove their political points," he says.

"The most recent attacks against my country come from those who claim Kosovo is becoming a safe haven for Islamist radicalism and an exporter of foreign fighters to Iraq and Syria," he adds.

Thaci says the claim is wrong. The government in Pristina, he adds, is taking "decisive action to stop the flow of young people, often coming from marginalised communities, to the war zones of Iraq and Syria.

"We have passed a bill that bans fighting in foreign wars. In two separate police actions, we have arrested 45 suspected militants as well as individual imams who sponsor, advocate or support the hardliners."

Most Kosovars are Muslim, the Prime Minister adds. At the same time, they "wholly reject the religious dogma proposed by radical strains of political Islam, and we shall not allow it to endanger our path towards eventual Nato and EU membership.

"We will crush any cells that believe, wrongfully, that they can find cover in Kosovo. Just as my former guerrilla Kosovo Liberation Army rejected offers from jihadists who wanted to volunteer in the 1999 war, we now reject the new evil that is stemming from Islamic State (Isis) and related...