Word: kosovo
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...past three years, Lindita Rexhepi, an ethnic Albanian high school student from the mining city of Mitrovica in northern Kosovo, has not been able to go home. She was 14 when Serb troops expelled her and her family from their small cement-block home as part of their offensive against ethnic Albanian rebels and forced them across the border into Montenegro. When the war ended in 1999, they returned to find the narrow road into their hillside neighborhood blocked by Serbs, many of whom had fled here from Albanian-dominated areas elsewhere in Kosovo. The last time Lindita tried...
When the Balkan wars started in 1991, Mitrovica, or Kosovska Mitrovica as it is known in Serbia, was just another ethnically mixed city in Slobodan Milosevic's Yugoslavia. But, as the Serb strongman stepped up his campaign against ethnic Albanians and the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army, old neighborly ties began to fray. One night the body of Lindita's father was found in a back street on another side of town. A restaurant owner, he had been accused of giving food to the rebels. The Rexhepi family believe he was murdered by Serbs...
Then came the Kosovo war. When Serb forces withdrew in late June 1999 under NATO bombardment and peacekeeping forces arrived to establish a U.N. administration, Serbs who had been expelled from other parts of Kosovo made a last stand in the city. Mitrovica, which lies only two dozen kilometers from Serbia, is highly prized because of its massive Trepca coal mine. Clashes between Albanians and Serbs have left dozens killed and many more wounded. Former U.N. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke once called Mitrovica "the most dangerous place in Europe." In many ways, it still...
...just under three years, the U.N. administration in Kosovo has tried to establish its authority in the north of Mitrovica - and failed. A new attempt is now under way, spearheaded by Nebojsa Covic, Serbia's Vice Premier and the minister responsible for Kosovo. The province is still legally part of Serbia and Belgrade continues to pay the salaries of northern Mitrovica's civil servants, though elsewhere in Kosovo the U.N. is in charge. Covic hopes to persuade Ivanovic and others to play along with the U.N. in exchange for assurances about Serbs' long-term security. "They have to face reality...
...same radical views throughout the Muslim world. Saudi money paid for many of the Pakistani madrassas that were the breeding grounds of the Taliban. And after the NATO bombing campaign freed the Kosovars from the threat of genocide by the Serbs, Saudi money financed the development of mosques in Kosovo that still preach the extreme Wahhabi sect of Islam...