Russian Soldiers Detain KLA General

In an incident that could strain relations between Kosovo’s lame-duck rebel army and NATO-led peacekeepers here, the commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army was detained by Russian troops Saturday when he was unable to produce a special identification card that allows him to wear his uniform and sidearm in public, alliance officials said.

Gen. Agim Ceku, the military leader of the KLA, was detained in Kijevo, west of Pristina, the provincial capital, said Canadian Maj. Roland Lavoie, spokesman for the NATO-led Kosovo peacekeeping force known as KFOR.

In the aftermath of the alliance’s war over Kosovo, the rebel KLA is in the process of demilitarizing. Only Ceku and a dozen of his top commanders are permitted to wear their uniforms, carry sidearms and travel with armed guards, Lavoie said. KFOR issued special ID cards, known as joint implementation cards, to those officers.

When Ceku was stopped in his KLA uniform, he was unable to produce the card, Lavoie said. He was detained until the troops could confirm his identity.

“Personally, I’m very pleased to see that the system works. People in Kosovo aren’t supposed to travel around with bodyguards with weapons,” Lavoie said. “The [soldiers] did their job, and they did it properly.”

Lavoie said that he did not know whether Ceku was armed and traveling with armed guards Saturday but that that was his usual practice.

KLA officials said the Russians were out of line.

“As the interim government of Kosovo, we condemn this act as premeditated, with a political aim,” Hashim Thaci, the KLA’s political leader, said at a news conference. “It shows our doubts about Russian troops’ participation within KFOR were correct.”

Many ethnic Albanians are against the Russians’ presence in Kosovo because of their historic links to the Serbs, whose forces carried out a murderous campaign of “ethnic cleansing” against the province’s ethnic Albanian majority.

Thaci said the KLA did not want the Russians to act like “uncontrolled gangs across Kosovo.”

Vlora Qitaku, a top aide to Thaci, said that the Russian troops attempted to arrest Ceku but that the general “refused.”

She said Ceku was allowed to go after “negotiations” between British Lt. Gen. Mike Jackson, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s top commander in Kosovo, and the ranking Russian officer in the area where the stop occurred. Lavoie said he could not confirm Jackson’s involvement in the incident.

Neither KFOR nor KLA officials provided details about the stop or said exactly how long Ceku was detained. Qitaku, the KLA spokeswoman, said that the incident began about 2:45 p.m. and that as of about 7:30 p.m. the general was en route to Pristina, where he was headed when the incident occurred.