Kosovo authorities have detained around 60 persons under suspicion for participation in the war for the so called Islamic state or under suspicion for indoctrination and recruiting of fighters for battles in Syria and Iraq. Arrests took place out of fear that actions similar to those in Syria and Iraq could take place in Kosovo too.
The question emerges whether Kosovo has become a hotbed for Jihad? Kosovo police has detained an imam and closed an improvised mosque, which was located in the premises of the publicly owned company ‘Termokos’ in Pristina, due to suspicion that certain number of persons have been inspired, recruited and send to Syria and Iraq from there.
Pristina analysts say that Kosovo Albanians are departing to Syria and Iraq due to bad economic situation and problems in education, but thanks to preaching of certain imams too, who have different interpretation of the traditional Islam.
16 Albanians have been killed in Syria and Iraq so far. According to sources of various international intelligence services there are around 150 fighters from Kosovo and Metohija fighting in those countries. Do they pose a threat to Kosovo?
Political analyst Behlul Becaj says that no matter how detrimental that is for the image, it will be even worse unless the causes are not uprooted and if those persons are not fitted into a certain comprehensive social processes, which would be desired by any normal citizen. He also comments that, by a massive arrests of suspects of Islamic extremism, Kosovo police seems to has fall asleep in front of the problem.
“I think that we will have a situation which could trigger, at the beginning, something which might not look as an avalanche, however it could appear as a sort of process of protests, which could take a bit wider proportion in the given difficult economic situation,” Becaj said.
The responsibility lies now with Pristina, which is preoccupied as of June with the creation of the government since Kosovo Albanian political parties can’t agree over the government which would govern Kosovo and Metohija in next four years. Such an ambient can be fertile soil for the extremists.
