Balkanalysis.com

01/01/2008: Kosovo’s Future Army Gets Communications Center

01/01/2008: Kosovo’s Future Army Gets Communications Center

(Balkanalysis.com Security & Intelligence Brief 24) The ‘Kosovo Protection Corps,’ referred to by its Albanian-language acronym TMK, is continuing its development towards being an operational military force for a future independent Albanian-dominated state. Composed largely of former Kosovo Liberation Army guerrilla fighters, the role of the TMK had long been envisaged by interventionist supporters in the West.

A transcript report from RTV21 television in Pristina details an official event of 28 December, 2007 in which the TMK Liaison 50^th Battalion, ‘Shaqir Tershanam’ received a new building for communications at ‘Adem Jashari’ Barracks in the capital. TMK Commander Lieutenant-General Sylejman Selimi and battalion commander Colonel Safet Syla were on hand to inaugurate the facility, stating that it will be used for communications training for future TMK recruits. The battalion currently numbers 50 men.

The four sectors of the facility include a telephone department, a department of radio systems, a department of information technology and a transmitting department. The transcript cited Colonel Syla as saying that new equipment stipulated in the TMK’s parliamentary budget will soon be installed.

Interestingly, along with these budget allocations, he also disclosed that some of the new communications equipment will be comprised of materiel from ‘different donations’ as well as items ‘inherited’ from the Kosovo Liberation Army. It is well known that NATO provided the KLA with sophisticated communications equipment as far back as 1999, and donations of weapons and equipment since then have been steady. The Germans and Americans have proved especially generous.

In late July 2006, as the international powers continued pushing for a final formula that would lead to Kosovo independence for the Albanians, the International Crisis Group – the interventionist think-tank that had been a champion of this Yugoslav secessionist process since even before the 1999 NATO bombing campaign – urged that the world ‘must avoid creating a weak state’ in Kosovo. The ‘key component’ for guaranteeing future stability, the ICG averred, ‘should be an army built in part upon the Kosovo Protection Corps.’