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Breaking News: Serbian Security Forces Enter Kosovo!
Posted in EX-Yougoslavie, Europe, NATO, OTAN by eldib on February 20th, 2008

This article appeared in the Guardian on Wednesday February 20 2008 on p20 of the International section.

It was last updated at 00:44 on February 20 2008.

Up to 1,000 men, some suspected of being members of the Serbian Ministry of Interior police, crossed into northern Kosovo yesterday amid rising fears that minority Serbs living in the new state’s north would attempt effectively to partition Kosovo along the Ibar River.

After two days of rapidly rising tensions between Serbs and Albanians following Kosovo’s declaration of independence from Serbia on Sunday, eyewitnesses counted close to 200 cars and buses crossing from southern Serbia full of men.

In a day of high drama, masked Serbs also torched two border posts separating Serbia from Kosovo, located at Jarnije and Banja about 18 miles north of Mitrovica, with bulldozers and plastic explosives.Nato troops later closed down the roads leading to the checkpoints, cutting off the only link between northern Kosovo and Serbia.

Several incidents were reported overnight, including masked attackers throwing grenades at UN and Albanian-owned buildings. No one was reported injured.

UN and Nato officials seemed to have been taken largely by surprise by yesterday’s events, which saw KFor troops being sent in to rescue personnel trapped at the border posts.

Protesters also tipped over metal sheds that housed Kosovo’s customs service and sent them sliding down a hill and into a river. They also vandalised and set fire to passport control booths. “It was very dangerous and the police had to withdraw and call for help from Nato peacekeepers,” said Veton Elshani, a spokesman for Kosovo’s multi-ethnic police force.

In Belgrade, the Serbian government minister for Kosovo, Slobodan Samardzic, hailed the attacks, saying: “Today’s action is in accordance with the general Serbian government policies.

“Belgrade has the intention to take over the customs in northern Kosovo,” Samardzic told private B92 television. “The customs points were intended to become part of Kosovo’s state border and we are not going to let that happen.”

The attacks and arrival of the convoys from Serbia were an ominous reminder of the enduring potential for violence in the new nation of Kosovo as it embarks on European-supervised independence.

The EU’s new envoy, Pieter Feith, arrived in Pristina yesterday, accompanied by the EU foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, to mark the beginning of Kosovo’s new era. Feith will lead a “stability mission” of 1,800 EU police and legal experts who will run the country’s court system for the next few years.

In the coming days, Feith, a Dutch diplomat with extensive Balkan experience, will also take over leadership of the International Civilian Office, which will give him the power to overturn legislation and sack Kosovan officials.

European officials insisted he would try to keep a low profile and use his powers only in extreme circumstances when, for instance, the country’s democracy or minority rights were in jeopardy.

Yesterday’s incidents were an illustration of the central problem facing Feith and the Albanian majority government in Pristina - the refusal of Kosovo’s Serb minority and the Belgrade government to acknowledge the former province’s sovereignty.

Elsewhere in the Serb-dominated north witnesses also spoke of police stations once occupied by the joint Serb-Albanian Kosovo police service now displaying the Serb flag. The fears that Serbia is intending to put its police force into the north follow rumours being circulated among Kosovo police service officers in Mitrovica that Serb members are planning to resign en masse in the coming days.

The attacks and the arrival of a convoy from Serbia come as further demonstrations are planned against the declaration of independence in Mitrovica and Serbian cities this week.
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U.S. shot raises tensions, worries over satellites
Reuters
Thursday February 21 2008
By Jim Wolf

WASHINGTON, Feb 21 (Reuters) - The shot that slammed into a a crippled U.S. spy satellite Wednesday has raised fears of a new arms race in the heavens and increased tensions on Earth.
Thirteen months after China destroyed an aging satellite with a missile, the operation also added to concerns about disruption of space assets vital for 21st-century global commerce and security.
The craft was hit 247 kms (153 miles) over the Pacific, the Pentagon said, using arms designed for the ship-based leg of a multibillion-dollar shield against missiles that could be tipped with chemical, germ or nuclear warheads.
The Bush administration has insisted it was not trying to demonstrate anti-satellite capabilities of the Lockheed Martin Corp "Aegis" ballistic missile defense -- though experts said the effect was just that.
The administration said its goal was to protect populated areas from the spacecraft's unused supply of deadly hydrazine propellant -- an explanation many called unpersuasive.
The Pentagon said on Thursday it was very confident it had hit the fuel tank. The 5,000-pound (2,270 kg) satellite was struck by a Raytheon Co Standard Missile-3 fired from the USS Lake Erie northwest of Hawaii, the Pentagon said.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates, responding to Chinese criticism of the event, said in Honolulu the United States "certainly would be prepared to share" resultant data with Beijing -- "whatever appropriately we can."
The operation marked the first time the U.S. missile defense system has been tweaked to aim for a satellite, although the United States and the Soviet Union conducted anti-satellite tests during the Cold War.
"It does not take an arms race to mess up space," said Michael Krepon, co-founder of the Henry L. Stimson Center, a nonpartisan public policy group in Washington. "All it takes is a few destructive anti-satellite tests."
STRONG CRITICISM
China drew strong criticism from the United States and others after it fired a ground-based missile at one of its weather satellites last year in the first anti-satellite test since Washington and Moscow halted theirs more than 20 years ago.
The Jan. 12, 2007, Chinese test occurred at 850 kms, close to orbits crowded with functioning satellites. Tens of thousands of debris bits were created instantly, some of which may complicate space operations for decades if not centuries, experts say.
Philip Coyle, the Pentagon's chief weapons tester under former President Bill Clinton, said he suspected one of the unstated U.S. goals on Wednesday was to strut an ability to shoot down a satellite from any ocean on earth.
"It was a bad idea," he said. "It will make it easier for other countries to justify shooting down satellites for whatever supposed reason, thereby increasing the likelihood of an arms race in space."
"I'll bet you a dinner that the Russians will do it next," he added in an E-mail interview.
Russia and China have long suspected that the U.S. missile defense program was in fact "cover" for offensive space and antisatellite, or ASAT, weapons, said Theresa Hitchens, head of the Center for Defense Information's space security project.
Rep. Ike Skelton, chairman of the House of Representatives' Armed Services Committee, said the shoot-down was an "exceptional case."
"We abandoned the pursuit of anti-satellite technology two decades ago due to concerns about the consequences of its use, and our country has no plans to renew those efforts," the Missouri Democrat said. "Congress will closely monitor U.S. policies concerning our space assets in the coming days."
A Lockheed Martin executive hailed the adaptability of the company's Aegis ballistic missile defense, or BMD, hardware used to fire the three-stage interceptor missile at the satellite, code-named USA 193. The satellite malfunctioned shortly after it was launched on Dec. 14, 2006.
"Through our Aegis BMD testing, we know that hitting a target in space is a tremendous challenge," said Fred Moosally, president of Lockheed Martin Maritime Systems & Sensors business unit.
"With an unpredictable flight profile and significantly greater speed, this mission added new twists to that challenge," he said.
REVERSING THE TWEAKS
Lockheed Martin engineers will now begin reversing unspecified modifications to the guided-missile cruiser Lake Erie and two destroyers that took part in the mission.
Lockheed Martin and Raytheon did not immediately respond to a request to discuss tweaks made to their hardware to target USA 193. The Aegis system uses powerful computers and radar to detect and track targets as they rise over the horizon and guides the SM-3 to its predicted interception point.
Victoria Samson of the Center for Defense Information said the episode showed U.S. missile defense could function as an ASAT system able to shoot down other nations' assets in space.
The United States -- which relies heavily on space for everything from national security to telecommunications to executing financial transactions via satellite -- "stands to lose the most from weaponizing space," she said.
"Given how much the United States complained when China tested an ASAT last year, this kneecaps future criticism of their program," Samson added in an E-mail.
Riki Ellison, who heads the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance and who has close ties to the Pentagon and to industry, said using the missile defense system to destroy a falling satellite, ballistic missile or dangerous meteor was "an achievement for mankind."
A Raytheon sea-based X-band radar was deployed to support independently the discrimination and tracking of USA 193, he said, adding: "Other U.S. military sensors and satellites were deployed in the area and were also used for evaluation of the intercept."
Raytheon said the mission demonstrated its missile's ability "to meet a unique situation and perform beyond its intended purpose."
"The missile was never designed to engage a satellite," said Anne Marie Squeo, a company spokeswoman. "Much engineering and technical expertise made this one-time mission possible."
Boeing Co, which has partnered with Raytheon on SM-3 development since 1996 and builds components of the missile's heat-seeking warhead, was withholding comment, said a spokesman. (Additional reporting from Kristin Roberts in Honolulu and Andrew Gray; Editing by Brian Moss)
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