>
>From: Dusan Stakic
>
>ISSUE 1416 Sunday 11 April 1999
>
>
>
> 80 SAS men in Kosovo to target death squads
>By Alastair Mcqueen
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Special Air Service - Secret Kingdom
>
>
>
>
>
> Invincible sails in as UK doubles war effort
>A SQUADRON of SAS soldiers has been sent deep into Kosovo after moves
to
>deploy US special forces were put on hold until Congress approves the
>committal of US ground forces.
>
>Eighty SAS men were ordered into action after an appeal by Nato
>commanders to Tony Blair. The Prime Minister is being advised by the
new
>Director of Special Forces, an expert in Balkans undercover
operations.
>
>The SAS role is to target for the RAF the Serb Special Police and
army
>units responsible for the eviction and massacre of thousands of
ethnic
>Albanians. They have also been ordered to find and mark massacre
sites,
>to locate the hideouts of the death squad leaders and to find the
secret
>arsenals where the Serbs have hidden many of their heavy weapons.
>
>The SAS is also on hand to rescue Kosovars who are trapped or
awaiting
>execution. A Parachute Regiment battalion has been put on standby to
>move to the Balkans if required. The paras are the only infantry unit
>trained in large-scale hostage rescue.
>
>Ministers have overturned their original decision that no ground
troops
>- including Special Forces - were to set foot in Kosovo until
agreement
>for an international force had been thrashed out. They also feared
that
>if SAS soldiers were captured they would be paraded in show trials or
>tortured and executed.
>
>However, Nato commanders were anxious to make their airstrikes more
>precise. An SAS member said: "Technology is brilliant, but all the
>technology in the world cannot replace the Mark One Eyeball. Having
men
>on the ground reporting back accurately and guiding aircraft and
other
>troops to locations is the ideal. We can check out targets before the
>RAF even lift off the ground or we can change them at the last moment
if
>the guys on the ground spot something more important."
>
>The soldiers are understood to be wearing their normal camouflaged
>lightweight windproof suits for moving across country, but once they
>find lying-up points or observation posts they will change into
fleeces
>to avoid exposure and hypothermia.
>
>As allied aircraft approach they move closer to the target, pointing
>laser beams at the location and quietly talking the pilots into
>position. They will carry the latest US weapons including an Armalite
>rifle with a grenade launcher, MiniMi machine-guns, long-range "super
>rifles" plus mortars, claymore mines and pistols.
>
>From: Dusan Stakic
>
>MORE than 500 Albanians have left Britain after volunteering to
become
>guerrilla fighters in the war against Serbia, according to Kosovo
>Liberation Army representatives in London.
>
>Men and women from Britain's 8,000-strong Albanian community have
gone
>to Tirana, the Albanian capital, to be trained as soldiers. They are
>responding to a general order issued by the KLA last month asking all
>Albanian people from 18 to 50 to report to join the war to free
Kosovo.
>
>Pleurat Sejdiu, the KLA's official representative in London, said
>yesterday that they had been inundated with new recruits. "We have
>received many requests to join the KLA from people who have heard
that
>their friends and relatives have been killed or hurt in the
conflict,"
>he said.
>
>More than 340 volunteers have signed up to the KLA in the past three
>weeks. Once they have pledged themselves to the army, they are
>interviewed by a number of KLA representatives at a secret north
London
>address.
>
>One volunteer, Ekrem, 34, last week pledged to fight for Kosovo -
even
>though he has never been there - and has lived a settled,
trouble-free
>life in Britain for four years after leaving Albania.
>
>He said that he was ready to leave his job as a mini-cab driver, his
>British girlfriend of two years and his home in Cricklewood, north
>London, for the war because his cousin, Burim, died fighting for the
>KLA.
>
>"I do not want to die - but if I do not go and defend my brothers,
and
>fight for my family members who have died in battle, I cannot expect
a
>single Nato soldier to die for Kosovo," Ekrem said. He will be sent
to
>Tirana via Italy because the airport in the Albanian capital has been
>closed. Once in Italy, he will cross the Adriatic Sea by ferry and
take
>a coach to Tirana.
>
>The volunteers are allocated to military training in camps around the
>Albanian capital. Ex-servicemen from the Albanian or Yugoslavian
armies
>receive just 15 days of training. If they are without military
>experience they are sent away for a month's training.
>
>New soldiers are then assigned to the infantry, artillery or
anti-tank
>units. Some are sent straight to the front to fight. The KLA claims
that
>it has turned away hundreds of other volunteers because it is
sticking
>to its strict policy of only allowing Albanians to join the army.
>
>More than 300 non-Albanians, many of whom are British-based Muslims
or
>former British servicemen, have asked if they can fight in Kosovo.
They
>have been turned away because the KLA does not want to be accused by
>Serb propogandists of running an Islamic movement or an army of
>foreigners.
>
>More than 30,000 members of the KLA have died since it was formed in
>1996. Yesterday, clashes resumed along the Kosovo-Albanian border
>between the KLA and Serb military forces, according to the
Organisation
>for Security and Co-operation in Europe.
>
>10 April 1999: [International] Young men flock to join KLA fighters
>2 April 1999: [International] KLA faces collapse as men and guns run
out
>
>From: Peter & Darka
>
> 2. Toxins from NATO Bombs
> Endangering Six Countries Besides
> Serbia; Use of Depleted Uranium Shells
> Condemned
>
> ATHENS, Apr. 10 - Greek experts registered an increase in levels
> of toxic substances in the atmosphere of Greece, and said that
> Albania, Macedonia, Italy, Austria and Hungary all face a potential
> threat to human health as a result of NATO's bombing of Serbia,
> which includes the use of radioactive depleted uranium shells.
>
> Prof. Christos Zerefos, a member of the World Meteorological
> Organization (WMO) and director of the world center for ozone
> cartography, said that one day after the start NATO's attack on
> Yugoslavia, Greek experts discovered in the atmosphere dioxin
> and particles of the group of toxic agents knows as furanes,
> which pose a high risk for human health of the entire region.
>
> Meanwhile, back in New York, the International Action Center, a
> group that opposes the use of depleted-uranium weapons, called
> the Pentagon's decision to use the A-10 "Warthog" jets against
> targets in Serbia "a danger to the people and environment of the
> entire Balkans".
>
> The A-10s were the anti-tank weapon of choice in the 1991 war
> against Iraq. It carries a GAU-8/A Avenger 30 millimeter
> seven-barrel cannon capable of firing 4,200 rounds per minute.
> During that war it fired 30 mm rounds reinforced with depleted
> uranium, a radioactive weapon.
>
> John Catalinotto, a spokesperson from the Depleted Uranium
> Education Project of the International Action Center, and an editor
> of the 1997 book "Metal of Dishonor: Depleted Uranium", said the
> use of DU weapons in Yugoslavia "adds a new dimension to the
> crime NATO is perpetrating against the Yugoslav people
> -including those in Kosovo".
>
> Sara Flounders, a contributing author of "Metal of Dishonor:
> Depleted Uranium" and the Co-Director of the International Action
> Center, said the "Warthogs fired roughly 940,000 rounds of DU
> shells during the Gulf War. More than 600,000 pounds of
> radioactive waste was left in the Gulf Region after the war. And
> DU weapons in smaller number were already used by NATO
> troops during the bombing of Serbian areas of Bosnia in 1995."
>
> In an Apr. 1 front page article headlined, "Uranium bullets on
> NATO holsters," the San Francisco Examiner's reporter, Kathleen
> Sullivan, wrote that "the use of depleted uranium in combat is a
> troubling prospect to some veterans groups, which worry that the
> Pentagon will fail - once again - to issue warnings about the
> danger posed by its hazardous dust and debris.
>
> Piers Wood, a senior fellow at the Center for Defense Information
> and a retired Army lieutenant colonel, dismissed concerns about
> the health and environmental effects of depleted uranium, saying
> everything in life is a trade-off.
>
> "I would risk the consequences of inhaling depleted uranium dust
> before I would consider facing tanks, Wood told the Examiner.
> Depleted uranium is wonderful stuff. It turns tanks into Swiss
> cheese."
>
> However, radiation expert Rosalie Bertell said depleted uranium is
> highly toxic to humans. Bertell, president of the International
> Institute of Concern for Public Health, called its use in
Yugoslavia
> radiation and toxic chemical warfare that must be denounced.
>
> Some experts also warned of the environmental hazards posed
> by depleted uranium, which has a half-life of 4.5 billion years.
"In
> Yugoslavia, it's expected that depleted uranium will be fired in
> agricultural areas, places where livestock graze and where crops
> are grown, thereby introducing the specter of possible
> contamination of the food chain," said Paul Sullivan, executive
> director of the National Gulf War Resource Center.
>
> Last year, Iraqi doctors said they feared a disturbing rise in
> leukemia and stomach cancer among civilians who live near the
> war zone may be linked to depleted uranium contamination of
> Iraqi farmland.
>
> ---
>
> TiM Ed.: In short, the new Adolf and his helpers are indeed worse
> than the original. For, the Clinton administration and its NATO
> allies are committing not only crimes against humanity, but against
> life in general, including the flora and fauna (also see an earlier
> TiM article about that - Day 8, Update 1, Item 2, Mar. 31).
PROSIRITE LISTU U JUGOSLAVIJI I SVETU.
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