NATO SHIES AWAY FROM KLA TACTICS, IDEOLOGY

By Philip Smucker

THE WASHINGTON TIMES, Wednesday, May 5, 1999

Continuing Western doubts about the ideology and the fighting tactics of the Kosovar guerrilla uprising have relegated the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) to a minor supporting role for NATO in the battle for Kosovo, Western officials say. "I've told these guys that they don't stand a chance against the Serbs with their idea of organization and their big egos," said an American diplomat with military experience. His contempt for the rebel leadership is typical of the attitude of Westerners working closely with them. Despite Albanian rebel claims to have carved out new supply routes inside western Kosovo, Western intelligence officials say the rebel army has a "credibility gap" and is still no match for its Yugoslav foe. Analysts close to Western intelligence officials with ties to the rebel army say the officials are disturbed by the rigid structure of the KLA and its lingering ties to Marxist ideology. "The KLA is seen as still having something of a Maoist disposition and, therefore, being incapable of the kin

d of change that it really needs," said a British lawyer who has close ties to the army and therefore asked to remain anonymous. "But an even greater barrier to arming the KLA is that Europe does not want to build up a tiger that will haunt it in the future." Recently obtained intelligence documents disclosed yesterday by The Washington Times show that some KLA members have been trained in secret camps in Afghanistan, Bosnia-Herzegovina and elsewhere funded by terrorist fugitive Osama bin Laden. The Times also reported this week that profits from the sale of heroin have gone to finance the KLA war effort. The rebel army has grown from a few thousand men to between 15,000 and 30,000 since the bombings began, yet it remains unable to break through Serbian lines or mount sustained attacks. Rebel officials say they are doing all they can to help the NATO alliance and deserve more help and assistance in return for their efforts. "I don't think the KLA is being ignored, but our potential is certainly being overloo

ked," said Pleurat Sejdiu, a KLA political officer. "At the moment this is a modern war which the KLA --in many ways -- simply can't help out in because of the kind of arms it has as compared to those of NATO." NATO's ambivalence toward the secretive independence-minded army stems in part from the fact it does not embrace NATO's public aim of keeping what remains of Yugoslavia intact while giving Kosovo more autonomy. The reluctance to back the KLA with arms is also based on a perception that the rebels subscribe to social doctrines alien to Western planners. The KLA's predecessor, the Popular Movement for Kosovo (PMK), was formed in 1982 after decades of ethnic Albanian resistance to Serbian rule. Many of the group's members, who lived in neighboring Albania, admit they were guided by a rigid Marxist doctrine that continues to influence some wings of the organization today. Still, after several high-profile massacres of ethnic Albanians by Serbian special forces in early 1998, thousands of male and sometime

sfemale peasants volunteered for a popular uprising that identifies with little ideology other than guns and liberation. The core of the KLA became dominated by families from the central Drenica farming district, where Albanian rebels held out for years against the Yugoslav military after the end of World II. Early this year, the KLA named the district's Suleyman "The Sultan" Selimi as its commander in chief. Mr. Selimi had long been an influential leader with close ties to Adem Jashari, one of the KLA's founding clansmen, who was killed along with his family in March of 1998. After the Jashari family killing, the young Selimi, 29, ordered a crackdown on "Albanian spies" thought to be working with the Serbs, a dictate that ethnic Albanian sources say led to the summary killing of several "enemies of the Kosovar people." A similar assassination campaign undertaken by the KLA in Western Kosovo against Albanians and Serbs sympathetic to the Yugoslav regime disturbed Western officials who had been pressing the r

ebels to restrain themselves. KLA officials denied the killings, but damning evidence of unburied corpses within their command zones was discovered. KLA officials in Tirana, the Albanian capital, said this week that a former Croatian army brigadier wounded fighting against Yugoslavia in 1993 has been named chief of staff of the rebel army. Spokesman Visar Reka told Reuters news agency that Agim Ceku had assumed full responsibility for the military operations of the KLA. "He is now in charge," Mr. Reka said Monday without commenting on the fate of Mr. Selemi. Mr. Ceku retired from the Croatian army earlier this year, having joined in 1991 and reached the rank of brigadier. "Since the beginning [of the latest Kosovo crisis], he has collaborated with the KLA headquarters and has given an extraordinary contribution," Mr. Reka said. Despite continued doubts about the KLA, Western and particularly American diplomats now say they are impressed with the rebel army's determination to overcome Serbian oppression and s

acrifice their lives if necessary. A small group of American intelligence officers working in the region now privately supports the idea of a "proxy war" fought through the KLA to help defeat the Yugoslav army and police units working to rid Kosovo of its Albanian population. These same officials are passing on KLA reports to NATO headquarters in Belgium for use by NATO pilots targeting Serbian tanks and artillery. "The support the KLA is giving NATO is still very important," said Mr. Sejdiu. "Our intelligence alone is causing lots of damage and taking quite a big toll. This is not something concrete that you can measure, like bomb damage. It is less visible but just as valuable to the struggle."