European Politico-economics QA Mega-thread - Page 1375

Air raid sirens were heard in Mitrovica in northern Kosovo on Sunday afternoon, with reports by local media indicating that a large presence of emergency vehicles was seen throughout the area.

The background of the incident is unclear.

Kosovo Police announced on Sunday evening that they had closed the Bernjak and Jarinje border crossings to traffic due to roadblocks set up on these roads. Other border crossings are working as normal according to police.

The police made no mention of the sirens and provided no further details.

The sirens come as Kosovo officials prepared to require Serbians visiting Kosovo to replace their Serbian passports with a temporary ID while in the country and to require Serbian license plates in the country to be replaced with Kosovar license plates.

On Sunday, Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić stated that Serbia has "never been in a more complex and difficult situation [regarding Kosovo] than it is today," according to N1 TV.

Vučić asked for all sides to keep the peace, but warned that "If they don't want to keep the peace, I'm telling you - Serbia will win."

Additionally on Sunday, Serbian politician Vladimir Đukanović wrote on Twitter that "Everything seems to me that Serbia will be forced to begin the denazification of the Balkans. I'd like to be wrong."

Later in the day, Đukanović tweeted "Lord, help our people in Kosovo and Metohija. The information coming in is terrible," without clarifying what was happening.

In a nationwide raid, 25 suspected members and supporters of a terrorist organization were arrested early Wednesday.

Officials said the network, part of a wider right-wing movement, was already well established with a concrete plan to overthrow the German state by force and install a new government.

What we know so far
The raids were announced by Germany's federal prosecution agency and German Justice Minister Marco Buschmann. Buschmann said the investigations were directed against a suspected terrorist network with known ties to the Reichsbürger movement. He said that the raids had taken place on individuals suspected of planning an armed attack on state institutions.

"Since this morning a large anti-terror operation is taking place. The Federal Public Prosecutor General is investigating a suspected terror network from the Reichsbürger scene," Buschmann wrote. "The suspicion exists that an armed attack on constitutional organs was planned."

The search operation is reported to have covered 130 properties belonging to 52 suspects in 11 German states.

According to prosecution officials, the arrested suspects "belong to a terrorist organization founded by the end of November 2021 at the latest, which has set itself the goal of overcoming the existing state order in Germany and replacing it with its own form of state, which has already been worked out in outline."

Of the 25 men and women arrested, 24 were from Germany and one suspected supporter is from Russia. One arrest took place in Austria and one in Italy. There are 27 other suspects, the federal prosecutor's office said.

Two ringleaders identified
Prosecutors identified the suspected ringleaders only as Heinrich XIII P. R. and Ruediger v. P., in line with German privacy rules. The news magazine Der Spiegel reported that the former was a well-known 71-year-old member of a minor German noble family, while the latter was a 69-year-old former paratrooper.

According to prosecutors, Heinrich XIII P. R., who the group planned to install as the new leader of Germany, had made contact with Russian officials seeking to establish a new order in Germany once the Berlin government was overthrown. A Russian woman, Vitalia B, had allegedly given him help with this. The Russian embassy in Berlin denied having links to far-right terror groups.

A currently-serving soldier in the Bundeswehr's Special Forces Command (KSK) as well as several Bundeswehr reservists are also among suspects in the case, a spokesperson for Germany's Military Counterintelligence Service (MAD) told the DPA news agency. A search was reported to have been carried out at the soldier's home and his barracks office in the state of Baden-Württemberg.

The trigger for the raids was an investigation into another Reichsbürger group that had planned to kidnap German Health Minister Karl Lauterbach.

German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said the case revealed the threat posed by the Reichsbürger movement.

"The investigations provide a glimpse into the abyss of a terrorist threat from the Reichsbürger scene," Faeser said in a statement. "We know how to defend ourselves with all our might against the enemies of democracy," she added.

The president of the German parliament's lower house, Bärbel Bas, said the operation shows "that our democratic constitutional state is attentive and capable of action."

Belief in violence to overthrow 'deep state'
The group had targeted members of the Bundeswehr and police for their wanted to win their goals. It had formed a "military arm" and a council presided over by Heinrich XIII P. R.

To implement their plans the group's members were prepared to use military means and violence against state representatives and were willing to kill to achieve their goals. According to the investigators, the members of the group "followed a conglomerate of conspiracy myths consisting of narratives of the so-called 'Reichsbürger' as well as QAnon ideology."

The prosecutors added that the group's adherents believe Germany is ruled by a so-called "deep state," similar to baseless claims about the United States that were made by former President Donald Trump.

The Reichsbürger movement is made up of a number of small organizations and individuals, mainly in the states of Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Bavaria. They do not accept the legality of the Federal Republic of Germany or any of its government authorities.

The movement argues that the German constitution prior to World War II was never properly nullified and that the formation of the former West Germany in 1949, and now reunified Germany, was therefore never valid.

rc/msh (AFP, Reuters, dpa)

On December 08 2022 03:29 JimmiC wrote:

Can you expand on why you do not think it is big news?

On December 08 2022 03:43 Sent. wrote:


Looks like it's just 25 incompetent idiots with no real ability to conduct large scale terrorist attacks. There are no words like "weapon", "bomb", "gun" or "explosive" in the article. "The suspicion exists that an armed attack on constitutional organs was planned" is the strongest statement in the entire article and somehow we still don't know about any weapons being found.

I mean, it's good that the state stepped in before anything could happen, but it's not exactly top headline material.

PRISTINA, Kosovo (AP) — Tensions were high in northern Kosovo on Sunday, with Serbs blocking roads as shots and explosions rang out and the Serbian president warned that Serbian troops are ready to defend their “homeland” if peace doesn’t prevail.

The roads in Serbia’s former province of Kosovo, which proclaimed independence in 2008, were blocked with heavy vehicles and trucks a day after Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said he would ask the NATO-led peacekeeping force in Kosovo to permit the deployment of 1,000 Serb troops in the Serb-populated north of Kosovo, saying they are being harassed there.

The roadblocks, which Serbs say were erected to protest the recent arrest of a former Kosovo Serb police officer, came despite the postponement of the Dec. 18 municipal election opposed by Kosovo Serbs.

“Kosovo reduced tensions by postponing local elections,” said German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock on Sunday.

“Recent rhetoric from Serbia did the opposite. Suggesting sending Serbian forces to Kosovo is completely unacceptable. So are the latest attacks on EULEX,” she said.

Vucic said Sunday after a meeting of Serbia’s top security body that he will do everything to preserve peace, but that the army is ready to protect the minority Serbs in Kosovo.

“We have taken certain measures to protect our homeland,” Vucic told Serbia’s state RTS television. “I have issued orders and the National Security Council has accepted them. I am very proud of our soldiers and policemen. Before they receive orders … we will try for a million times to preserve peace,” he said.

Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti accused Belgrade of trying to destabilize Kosovo. He said Serbia also is trying to bring an end to the EU-mediated dialogue on normalizing bilateral ties and take it to the United Nations Security Council, where Belgrade hopes to get support from Russia and China.

Kurti called on Kosovo’s Serbs “to distance themselves from the criminal groups and Vucic’s regime that is funding them and looking for a war.”

The European Union rule of law mission, known as EULEX, reported that a stun grenade was thrown at an EULEX reconnaissance patrol overnight. There were no injuries or damage.

EULEX, which has some 134 Polish, Italian and Lithuanian police officers deployed in the north, called on “those responsible to refrain from more provocative actions” and said it urged the Kosovo institutions “to bring the perpetrators to justice.”

European Union’s high representative, Josep Borrell, said the EU “will not tolerate attacks on EULEX or use of violent, criminal acts in the north.”

“Barricades must be removed immediately by groups of Kosovo Serbs,” he said on Twitter. “Calm must be restored ... all actors must avoid escalation.”

Unidentified masked men were seen on the Serb barricades that blocked main roads leading to the border with Serbia, as Kosovo authorities closed two border crossings to all traffic and pedestrians.

An increased presence of Kosovar Albanian police in areas with a mixed population, as well as more international police and soldiers, were seen in the north on Sunday.

Serbia and Kosovo have intensified their war of words in recent days.

Vucic said Saturday that he would formally request permission from the NATO-led KFOR mission in Kosovo to deploy Serbian troops in northern Kosovo, while conceding that the request probably wouldn’t be granted.

Serbian officials claim a U.N. resolution that formally ended the country’s bloody crackdown against majority Kosovo Albanian separatists in 1999 allows for some 1,000 Serb troops to return to Kosovo. NATO bombed Serbia to end the war and push its troops out of Kosovo, which declared independence in 2008.

The NATO-led peacekeepers who have been deployed in Kosovo since the 1998-99 war would have to give a green light for Serb troops to go there. That’s highly unlikely because it would de-facto mean handing over security of Kosovo’s Serb-populated northern regions to Serbian forces — a move that could dramatically increase tensions in the Balkans.

“We do not want a conflict. We want peace and progress but we shall respond to aggression with all our powers,’ Kosovar Prime Minister Albin Kurti posted on social media.

Kurti told the European Union and the United States that they should “punish” Serbia for orchestrating the violence to “destabilize Kosovo.”

Tension in the north has been high this week ahead of the polls initially planned for Dec. 18. They have now been postponed to April 23 in an attempt to defuse the situation.

The election was due after ethnic Serb representatives resigned their posts in November to protest a decision by Kosovo’s government to ban Serbia-issued vehicle license plates.

Tensions have simmered in Kosovo ever since it proclaimed independence from Serbia, despite attempts by EU and U.S. officials to defuse them. Serbia, supported by its allies Russia and China, has refused to recognize Kosovo’s statehood.

Both Serbia and Kosovo want to join the EU but Brussels has warned they must resolve their dispute and normalize relations to be eligible for membership in the bloc.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has said that the NATO-led mission in Kosovo “remains vigilant.”