Ethnic Albanian militants claim responsibility for attack in Agence France Presse, 08/12/03

An ethnic-Albanian extremist group claimed responsibility Tuesday for a mortar attack on a army base, warning that more was to come. The Albanian National Army (ANA), which also operates in and Macedonia, said in a statement that it had fired the mortars at the base near this southern Serbian village on Sunday night. The shadowy militia said its "special forces of the Adem Jashari division have successfully attacked a military base of Serbia and Montenegro", adding that its fighters had withdrawn to prepare new attacks.

Little is known about the ANA, which has also claimed responsibility for attacks in the neighbouring Serbian province of Kosovo and nearby Macedonia. It has been labelled a "terrorist" organisation by the United Nations mission in Kosovo, where two of its suspected members are wanted on terrorism charges. Defence ministry officials in Belgrade said there were no injuries or significant property damage in Sunday's attack, the first for more than a year against regular army troops in the mainly ethnic-Albanian area of southern Serbia.

The area has been a hotbed of ethnic-Albanian separatism, which erupted into open conflict with Serbian security forces from January 2000 to May 2001. Defence Minister Boris Tadic, who visited Dobrosin on Monday with Armed Forces Chief of Staff General Branko Krga and Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Nebojsa Covic, called the attack a "classic" act of terrorism. "The plan is very simple, to destabilise the entire region, to provoke the army to react inadequately and contribute to further destabilisation," he said.

Jashari, who the ANA mentions in its statement, was a leading commander of the ethnic- Albanian (KLA) which waged a separatist guerrilla campaign against Serbian forces during the 1998-99 . He was killed by Serbian police in 1998 and the KLA was disbanded as Kosovo came under UN and NATO administration after the war. The ANA says it is fighting to create a greater including Kosovo and parts of Macedonia and southern Serbia.