BALKAN - ALBANIA - KOSOVO - HEROIN - JIHAD

["D.R." <danica_razlag@usa.net>]

"The Albanian Medellin connection is particularly strong in Italy where it
is operating in conjunction with the "Sacra Corona Unita," or the fourth
mafia. The group controls the drug trade in the regions of Brindisi, Lecce
and Taranto. 

The tentacles of the Albanian mafia stretch across Europe. According to
Interpol, Albanian-speaking drug dealers accounted for 14% of those
arrested for heroin smuggling in 1997. While the average trafficker was
apprehended with two grams of heroin, the Albanians had an average of
120 grams in their possession. Scandinavian countries claim that
Albanians control 80% of the heroin market there. Switzerland says
90% of the drug trafficking in that country is connected to Albanians.
German law enforcement agencies claim that Albanians form the largest
group involved in heroin trafficking. "

                        * * * 

The Centre for Peace in the Balkans 
BALKAN - ALBANIA - KOSOVO - HEROIN - JIHAD 

The Centre for Peace in the Balkans 
www.balkanpeace.org 
scontact@balkanpeace.org 

Research Analysis 
May 2000 

The biggest paradox in the international war on drugs is connected to
the Balkans and the explosion of terrorist activities in that troubled area.
However, it relates less to drugs and arms and more to the major
participants in this deadly game. 

Terrorist organizations at the top of America’s most wanted list are
receiving tacit support in the Balkans from the Clinton administration.
The "most wanted" terrorist in the world today, Osama bin Laden, who
declared a "fatwa" against the US, is being abetted by the Clinton
doctrine. In the Balkans, we are witnessing a true paradox where
several mortal enemies - Iranian revolutionary guards, Osama bin Laden
and the CIA - are standing shoulder to shoulder while pursuing
diametrically opposite goals. 

Drugs Finance Terrorism 

Earlier reporting has confirmed that terrorism in the Balkans has been
primarily financed through narcotics trafficking. Heroin - worth 12 times
its weight in gold - is by far the most profitable commodity on the
markets. A kilogram of heroin, worth $1,000 in Thailand, wholesales for
$110,000 in Canada with a street value of $800,000. 

In fact, heroin trafficking has become so beneficial to the cause of
Albanian separatism that the predominantly Albanian-inhabited towns of
Veliki Trnovac and Blastica in Serbia, Vratnica and Gostivar in FYR
Macedonia, and Shkoder and Durres in Albania have become known as
the "new Medellins" of the Balkans. Via the Balkan Route, heroin travels
through Turkey, FYR Macedonia, Kosovo and Albania en route to
western European markets. The value of the heroin shipped is
$400-billion (US) a year. As early as 1996, the US Drug Enforcement
Agency (DEA) detailed the Balkan Route in its annual report. In 1998,
the DEA stated that Kosovo Albanians had become the second most
important traffickers on the Balkan Route. 

These predominantly Albanian drug barons from Kosovo ship heroin
exclusively from Asia's Golden Crescent, an apparently inexhaustible
source. At one end of the crescent lies Afghanistan, which in 1999
surpassed Burma as the world's largest producer of opium poppies.
From there, the heroin base passes through Iran to Turkey, where it is
refined, and then placed into the hands of the Albanians who operate
out of the lawless towns bordering FYR Macedonia, Albania, and
Serbia. According to the US State Department, four to six tons of heroin
move through Turkey every month. 

"Not very much is stopped", says one official. "We get just a fraction of
the total". Not surprisingly, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) has
flourished along the route. Its dependence on the drug lords is difficult to
prove, but the evidence is impossible to overlook. 

In 1998, German Federal Police froze two bank accounts belonging to
the "United Kosova" organization at a Dusseldorf bank after it was
discovered that several hundred thousand dollars had been deposited
into those accounts by a convicted Kosovo Albanian drug trafficker.
According to at least one published report, Bujar Bukoshi, Prime
Minister of the "Kosova" Government in Exile, also allegedly controlled
the accounts. 

In early 1999 an Italian court in Brindisi convicted an Albanian heroin
trafficker named Amarildo Vrioni, who admitted obtaining weapons for
the KLA from the Mafia in exchange for drugs. 

Last February 23, Czech police arrested Princ Dobroshi, the head of an
Albanian Kosovo drug gang. While searching his apartment, they
discovered evidence that he had placed orders for light infantry weapons
and rocket systems. No one had questioned what a small-time dealer
would be doing with rockets. Only later did Czech police reveal he was
shipping them to the KLA. The Czechs extradited Dobroshi to Norway
where he had escaped from prison in 1997 while serving a 14-year
sentence for heroin trafficking. 

It's therefore not surprising, say European law enforcement officials, that
the faction that ultimately seized power in Kosovo -- the KLA under
Hashim Thaci -- was the group that maintained the closest links to
traffickers. 

In its report about the KLA and heroin smuggling, the Montreal Gazette
wrote: "...Michael Levine, a 25-year veteran of the DEA (US Drug
Enforcement Agency) who left in 1990, said he believes there is no
question that US intelligence knew about the KLA's drug ties. "They
(the CIA) protected them (the KLA) in every way they could. As long as
the CIA is protecting the KLA, you've got major drug pipelines protected
from any police investigation", said Levine, who teaches undercover
tactics and informer handling to US and Canadian police forces,
including the RCMP. "The evidence is irrefutable," he said, explaining
that his information comes from "sources inside the DEA". 

The Albanian Medellin connection is particularly strong in Italy where it
is operating in conjunction with the "Sacra Corona Unita," or the fourth
mafia. The group controls the drug trade in the regions of Brindisi, Lecce
and Taranto. 

The tentacles of the Albanian mafia stretch across Europe. According to
Interpol, Albanian-speaking drug dealers accounted for 14% of those
arrested for heroin smuggling in 1997. While the average trafficker was
apprehended with two grams of heroin, the Albanians had an average of
120 grams in their possession. Scandinavian countries claim that
Albanians control 80% of the heroin market there. Switzerland says
90% of the drug trafficking in that country is connected to Albanians.
German law enforcement agencies claim that Albanians form the largest
group involved in heroin trafficking. 

German Federal Police now say that Kosovo Albanians import 80
percent of Europe's heroin. So dominant is the Kosovo Albanian
presence in trafficking that many European users refer to illicit drugs in
general as "Albanka", or Albanian lady. 

Terrorism, Spies and Albanians 

Osama bin Laden’s activities in Albania are well known and
documented. The presence of his network in that country is so powerful
that US Defence Secretary William Cohen cancelled a scheduled visit
last July out of fear of being assassinated. 

The Albanian national security organization SHIK confirmed that plans
exist to target US objects in Albania. SHIK is the offspring of the
notorious communist security apparatus the "Sigurimi." The former head
of the Sigurimi, Irakli Kocollari, is advisor to the current head of SHIK,
Fatos Klosi. In 1997 the CIA sent a team of experts to modernize and
reorganize SHIK. The other major patron of SHIK is the German
intelligence agency Bundensnachrichtendienst (BND) which opened one
of its largest stations in Tirana. A review of BND personnel is revealing.
While the terrorist Albanian organization Ushtria Clirimtare e Kosove -
UCK (KLA) was being formed, the BND was headed by Hansjorg Geiger
whose deputy was Rainer Kesselring, the son of the Luftwaffe general
who bombed Belgrade during the Second World War. 

Mr. Kesselring was given the job of training KLA terrorists at a Turkish
base near Izmir where he was head of the BND station in 1978. French
sources confirmed that members of the German commando unit,
Kommando Spezialkrafte (KSK), participated in the KLA training
program. Gen. Klaus Neumann, the outgoing head of NATO’s
occupational forces in Kosovo and Metohija, formed the German
commando unit. 

The relationship between the CIA and SHIK is one of master and
servant. At the CIA’s "request" last year, Albania expelled three
"humanitarian" workers, two Syrians and an Iranian. Acting on another
request, SHIK arrested an Albanian national, Maksim Ciciku, for spying
on the US embassy. Ciciku was educated in Saudi Arabia. In Albania
he worked for a private security company which provided bodyguards for
visiting Arabs. He was accused of following embassy employees on
behalf of Osama bin Laden. Albania also expelled four Egyptians who
were suspected of ties to bin Laden. Two others were arrested and
handed over to US agents, along with a van full of documents and
computer equipment, all of which belonged to Osama bin Laden’s
organization. 

At about the same time, Iran, through its embassy in Rome and it’s
operative Mahmut Nuranija, began to organize an intelligence-gathering
sector in Albania. Their involvement in Albania was based on two levels:
economic-financial through the Albanian Arab Islamic Bank, and
humanitarian through organizations which have become standard covers
for subversive activities. At the beginning of 1998 Iran began the serious
consolidation of its most important European strongholds, Sarajevo and
Tirana. According to Yossef Bodansky, terrorism and unconventional
warfare analyst, Iran aided the KLA by providing military plans drawn up
by Zaim Bersa, a former colonel in the Yugoslav National Army (JNA),
and another Kosovo Albanian, Ejup Dragaj. 

One of the leaders of an elite KLA unit was Muhammed al-Zawahiri, the
brother of Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, a leader in an Egyptian Jihad
organization and a military commander of Osama bin Laden. Once
again Kosovo becomes a paradox where several mortal enemies -
Iranian revolutionary guards, Osama bin Laden and the CIA - are
standing shoulder to shoulder training the KLA. 

It is believed that bin Laden solidified his organization in Albania in 1994
with the help of then premier Sali Berisha. Albania’s ties to Islamic
terrorist blossomed during Berisha's rule when the main KLA training
base was on Berisha's property in northern Albania. During the
"honeymoon" period between the CIA and Jihad holy warriors, Fatos
Klosi, the head of SHIK, said he had reliable information that four groups
of Jihad warriors from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Algiers, Tunisia and Sudan
were in northern Albania and fighting with the KLA. Klosi recently stated
that there is an attempt to destabilize the country, alluding primarily to
former premier Sali Berisha. 

Jihad and Serbia 

In 1994 in Lebanon, a radical Sunni Muslim group, Takfir wal Hijra,
attempted to blow up a convoy of Serbian priests who were on their way
Koura. The priests avoided death when the suicide bomber detonated
the explosive device prematurely. 

This attempt on the lives of Serbian priests preceded a more ambitious
plan. At the 18th Islamic conference, Al-Jama’ah al-Islaiyyah, held in
Pakistan (October 23-25, 1998), Albanian separatism in Kosovo and
Metohija was characterized as a Jihad. The same definition was given to
Muslim battles in India (Kashmir), Israel (Palestine) and Eritrea. By
defining armed battles as a "holy war" or Jihad, an obligation is placed
on the Muslim world to do everything in its power - economically,
politically and diplomatically - to aid the fight for freedom in occupied
Muslim territories". This gave legitimacy to terrorist acts carried out by
Allah’s holy warriors. Referring to a Jihad, the terrorist organization of
Osama bin Laden announced terrorist attacks against "infidel nations",
namely Great Britain, United States, France, Israel, Russia, India and
Serbia. 

The Bosnian Jihad Connection 

In Bosnia-Herzegovina, the influence of the ruling Islamic party, Party of
Democratic Action (SDA), has brought out the recently born again "true
believers". Recognized by their long beards and short-legged pants,
large numbers of them participated in KLA terrorist activities in Kosovo
and Metohija. The transport of these Jihad warriors was conducted
under the patronage of the SDA which provided them with passports.
Visas were issued for a "haj," or pilgrimage, to Mecca. Dr. Nauman
Balic, head of the Kosovo SDA and now a minister in Hashim Thaci’s
government", was responsible for their transit to Albania. The Bosnian
Muslims were provided with journalists' credentials and 2,000 DM for
travel costs. It is not known how many returned from Kosovo, but a
number of these Jihad warriors lost their lives in Chechnya. 

The Sarajevo authorities were active in the training of terrorists. In 1993
Saudi Arabia provided $1 million to build a refugee camp for Bosnian
Muslims in Albania. One of the main political leaders of the Muslim
authorities in Sarajevo admitted to Misha Glenny that the base was
used to train saboteurs sent to Kosovo because their Serbian was
flawless. 

Kosovo under NATO - A Virtual Narco-State (1) 

The benefits of the drug trade are evident around Pristina -- more so
than the benefits of Western aid. "The new buildings, the better roads,
and the sophisticated weapons -- many of these have been bought with
drugs," says Michel Koutouzis, the Balkans region expert for the Global
Drugs Monitor (OGD), a Paris-based think tank. The repercussions of
this drug connection are only now emerging, and many Kosovo
observers fear that the province could be evolving into a virtual
narco-state under the noses of 49,000 peacekeeping troops. 

It was the disparate structure of the KLA, Koutouzis says, that
Facilitated the drug-smuggling explosion. "It permitted a
democratization of drug trafficking where ordinary people get involved,
and everyone contributes a part of his profit to his clan leader in the
KLA," he explains. "The more illegal the activity, the more money the
clan gets from the traffickers. So it's in the interest of the clan to
promote drug trafficking". 

According to Marko Nicovic, the former chief of police in Belgrade, now
an investigator who works closely with Interpol, the international police
agency, 400 to 500 Kosovo Albanians move shipments in the 20-kilo
range, while about 5,000 Kosovo Albanians are small-timers, handling
shipments of less than two kilos. At one point in 1996, he says, more
than 800 ethnic Albanians were in jail in Germany on narcotics charges.


In many places, Kosovo Albanians traffickers gained a foothold in the
Illicit drug trade through raw violence. According to a 1999 German
Federal Police report, "The ethnic Albanian gangs have been involved in
drugs, weapons trafficking blackmail, and murder. They are increasingly
prone to violence". 

Tony White of the United Nations Drug Control Program agrees with this
assessment. "They are more willing to use violence than any other
group," he says. "They have confronted the established order throughout
Europe and pushed out the Lebanese, Pakistani, and Italian cartels". 

Few gangs are willing to tangle with the Kosovo Albanians. Those that
do often pay the ultimate price. In January 1999, Kosovo Albanians
killed Nine people in Milan, Italy during a two-week bloodbath between
rival heroin groups. 

Now free of the war and the Yugoslav police, drug traffickers have
Reopened the old Balkan Road. With the KLA in power -- and in the
spotlight - the top trafficking families have begun to seek relative
respectability without decreasing their heroin shipments. "The Kosovo
Albanians are trying to position themselves in the higher levels of
trafficking", says the U.N.'s Tony White. "They want to get away from
the violence of the streets and attract less attention. Criminals like to
move up like any other business, and the Kosovo Albanians are
becoming business leaders. They have become equal partners with the
Turks". 

Italian national police discovered this new Kosovo Albanian outreach
last year when they undertook "Operation Pristina". The carabinieri
(Italian Police) uncovered a chain of connections that originated in
Kosovo and stretched through nine European countries, extending into
Central Asia, South America and the United States. 

White House officials deny a whitewashing of KLA activities. "We do
care about (KLA drug trafficking)", says Agresti. "It's just that we've got
our hands full trying to bring peace there". 

The DEA is equally reticent to address the issue. According to Michel
Koutouzis, the DEA's website once contained a section detailing
Kosovo Albanians trafficking, but a week before the US-led bombings
began, the section disappeared. "The DEA doesn't want to talk publicly
(about the KLA)", says OGD director Alain Labrousse. "It's
embarrassing to them". 

High-ranking US officials are dismayed that the KLA was installed in
power without public discussion or a thorough check of its background.
"I don't think we're doing anything there to stem the drugs", says a
senior State Department official. "It's out of control. It should be a high
priority. We've warned about it". 

Even if it tried to stop the Kosovo Albanian heroin trade, the US would
be hard-pressed to do so. "Nobody's in control in Kosovo", adds the
State Department official. "They don't even have a police force".
Regardless of what it says, there's little indication that the
administration wants to do anything with the intelligence available about
its newest ally. "There is no doubt that the KLA is a major trafficking
organization", said a congressional expert who monitors the drug trade
and requested anonymity. "But we have a relationship with the KLA,
and the administration doesn't want to damage (its) reputation. We are
partners. 

The attitude is: The drugs are not coming here, so let others deal with
it". 

Conclusion 

Indeed the biggest paradox in the world war on drugs is connected to
the Balkans and the outburst of terrorist activities in that troubled area.
What is the reason for this unusual co-relation between US policy in
Balkans, the most wanted terrorist in the world today, Osama bin y en,
and this enormous KLA drug trafficking. 

As Michael Levine, a 25-year veteran of the DEA (US Drug Enforcement
Agency) stated: "They (the CIA) protected them the KLA) in every way
they could". McCoy, author of The Politics of Heroin, said the Afghan
Mujahideen rebels were one of the first US-backed rebel groups to get
into the heroin trade in a big way. The anti-Communist Mujahideen were
backed by the US in their opposition to the Soviet invasion of
Afghanistan in 1979. They started exporting massive amounts of opium
to raise money, with the knowledge and protection of the CIA and
Pakistani intelligence, according to McCoy. "That produced a massive
traffic in the '80s to Europe and the U.S.," he said. 

Other recipients of US support were Nicaraguan Contras, Panama’s
General Noriega, Afghan Taliban, Indonesia (remember massacres by
their special units in Timor), and Burma’s Khun Sa. Another US-backed
rebel army, the Nicaraguan contras, raised money for their war against
the leftist Sandinista government in the 1980s by flooding U.S. cities
with crack - all with the knowledge and assistance of the CIA and the
DEA, according to the book Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras and
the Crack Cocaine Explosion, by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Gary
Webb. 

Webb's allegations were initially denied by the CIA, but a CIA
inspector-general's report in October 1998 revealed that 58 contras were
linked to drug allegations. 

Early in 1999, as the war against Serbia raged, Congress voted to fund
the KLA's drive for independence. One tear later the US embrace of the
KLA may come as an embarrassment, but not a precedent. 

Quo Vadis America? 

1 - Material from "Mother Jones" Heroin Heroes, January/February 2000
used without permission, for academic and research purposes only. 

The Centre for Peace in the Balkans 
www.balkanpeace.org 

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