Balkans: March 3, 2004

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: UN administrators in Kosovo rejected a Serb proposal to cantonize Kosovo. Cantonization is division of the province along ethnic lines. In fact, similar proposals were made in 1999. The Serb government believes this is the best deal it can get for Kosovar Serbs. UNMIK released a statement assuring Kosovars the UN Security Council would make decisions regarding Kosovos final status, not Serbia. The Kosovo government also rejected the Serbian offer.

In Bosnia, SFOR reported that its troops arrested a Bosnian Serb suspected of war crimes. Former Bosnian Serb General Bogdan Subotic was arrested in Banja Luka .From 1992-1995 he was the Bosnian Serb Minister of Defense. A subsequent report said that Subotic is also suspected of helping chief war crime suspect Radovan Karadzic evade arrest. Perhaps SFOR is (finally) closing the net on Karadzic. 

Also from Bosnia: Bosnian Islamic Radio Naba (yes, it exists) ran a series of statements about the attacks on Shias in Baghdad and Karbala, Iraq, that sound like propaganda straight from Al Qaeda. Heres one of the statements: There is no doubt whatsoever that suicide or any other terrorist attacks on Shiites in Baghdad and Karbala are the doing of US intelligence services. For, how else can there be an explanation for the footage of the explosions being broadcast to the world almost live, as a sensation of the first order?...However, the message and the conclusion are painfully clear: the most important thing now is to create a rift between Iraq's Shiites and Sunnis, open a new internal Muslim front where Muslim youth will get killed daily, thus exhaust themselves and weaken themselves. At the same time, the US will be exhausting Iraqi oil reserves and transferring its oil to the USA. Radio Nabas agitprop doesnt stop there. The Islamist radio service also suggested the US was behind the death of Macedonias president. Is this an example of a coordinated Al Qaeda information campaign? Not necessarily but it is an example of how a network of the faithful can magnify the worst lies.