Kosovo continues to address the growing and complex challenges of terrorism emanating from Islamic and other forms of extremism, and continues to seek assistance from US and European partners to carry out the fight, experts said.
The 2014 Global Terrorism Index, recently published by the Australian Institute for Economics, listed Kosovo — together with Greece and Turkey — as being among the countries that are significantly threatened by terror groups.”Terrorism has become a global phenomenon with a 61 percent increase in the number of people killed in terrorist attacks over the last year,” the report said.
The Kosovo prosecutor’s office said it is dealing with 19 terrorism cases involving 112 persons suspected of violating the country’s criminal law concerning terrorism. The authorities arrested an additional 36 persons and placed 24 under house arrest.
Kosovo is open to co-operation, said Liridone Kozmaqi Hajdaraj, spokesperson for the Kosovo special prosecutor’s office. “Kosovo welcomes any kind of assistance, advice, sharing of experience with other countries in fighting this negative phenomenon,” Kozmaqi Hajdaraj told SETimes.
US authorities confirmed that Kosovo is on the list of countries to receive US assistance to fight terrorism. Attorney General Eric Holder said American prosecutors and legal advisors are engaged around the world, including the Balkans, to increase various countries’ capacities to investigate and prosecute terrorists and foreign fighters.
The US Justice Department has already sent advisers to four Balkan countries and said it will send a regional adviser against terrorism.
Experts said while Kosovo has already received assistance, a great deal of work awaits the authorities to put in place a sustainable anti-terrorism policy. “Both the US and the EU have helped Kosovo align its legislation with international standards on the fight against terrorism,” Fisnik Korenica of the Kosovo Institute for Legal Studies in Pristina told SETimes. “In addition, both the EU and US have helped the police and the prosecution with different programs to make it more capable of dealing with serious crimes including terrorism.”
Korenica also said anti-terrorism efforts must now include a sustainable policy against money laundering to fight any form of money transfer to Kosovo that may be used for terrorist activities. “Fighting terrorism goes hand in hand with the fight against secret financing,” Korenica added.
Other experts said even with additional assistance, the country is facing significant challenges.
Kosovo has open borders, especially with Serbia, and there have been cases of weapons smuggling by radicals, according to Seb Bytyci of the Balkan Policy Institute in Pristina. “The government made some arrests recently as a show of force and posturing before the international community, but none of these arrests has led to any indictments, and people were released although they had been caught smuggling weapons,” Bytyci told SETimes. Bytyci also noted that the foreign assistance will not be enough if there is no political will. But regionally, Kosovo, Serbia and Macedonia have created a symbolic relationship to fight radicalism, he said.
Kosovo authorities have continually reiterated that they do have the political will to fight terrorism and have also vowed to close the corridor for the terrorists that pass through Kosovo’s territory.
The Kosovo Islamic Community has also issued repeated calls to Muslims not to join and fight foreign wars.
But experts said to have a significant impact, the authorities need to tackle the problem regionally — and globally — given the complexity of terrorism. “There needs to be a far more responsible and strategic regional co-operation system that may help the fight against this phenomenon more coherently together with the other regional and international agencies,” Korenica said.
What else can Kosovo do to make its fight against terrorism more effective? Share your opinion in the comments section.
