Committee chair sees "network of radical Islam" in Kosovo

Committee chair sees "network of radical Islam" in Kosovo

Rexhepi, the interior minister in the Kosovo government, qualified it as an act of vandalism, claiming that the graffiti on the walls of the monastery had been written by three minors.

In a broadcast on Radio-Television of Kosovo, Rexhepi said that police would talk with the parents of the minors so as to ensure that such nonsense does not happen again.

“Rexhepi wants to diminish the gravity of this event, which is actually very serious,” Drecun, who chairs the Serbian Parliament's Committee on Kosovo, told reporters.

“In the last 20 years, these areas have become an Islamic Jihad stronghold which has the full potential for recruiting jihadists, which we have seen in the case of Syria and Iraq,” Drecun said.

“Although the network has become regional, there is still no proper response, there is no strong, joint regional action and the action of the entire international community against that,” he warned.

That network is particularly strong in Kosovo and Metohija, where radical Islam is preached in several hundred mosques, the jihadist ideology that emphasizes that Christians are a natural enemy to Muslims,” Drecun said.

“Many children in Kosovo and Metohija grow up with that radical ideology and become an easy prey for jihadists,” he added.

“Writing graffiti on the property of the Monastery of Dečani is not innocuous at all, and reveals the presence of a network of radical Islam which is especially strong in the areas of Dečani and Pec. That is why the explanation that the minors are responsible for this incident and that this has no gravity cannot possibly be accepted.

“It is even more dangerous if children wrote such messages as this means that they are growing up in the surroundings where radical Islam is being preached and that they can become an easy prey for radical Islamists,” the chairman of the committee on Kosovo said.

“I think that these are strong messages, even more so because it has been noted recently that there are two channels for recruitment of radical Islamists for Syria and Iraq,” Drecun added.

He noted that in its recent meeting, the committee on Kosovo addressed the degree to which Serbs in Kosovo are at risk from radical Islam, and concluded that there is still need for the presence of international forces in Kosovo.

“For various reasons, the Kosovo Police Service (KPS) does not have the necessary capacity to protect Serbs and prevent actions of radical Islam,” Drecun said, underscoring that the arrests of a big group of Islamists in August this year were a result of the West's pressure and Priština's attempt to show that it is doing something in the fight against extremism and terrorism.

KFOR condemns incident

KFOR Commander Francesco Paolo Figliuolo " has strongly condemned the acts of vandalism of writing graffiti on the walls and the gate of the Serbian Orthodox monastery of Visoki Dečani," Tanjug reported on Monday.

Figliuolo said that the “monastery is a world cultural heritage recognized by UNESCO and I believe that it represents common values for all the people of Kosovo and everyone should respect it and contribute to preserve it,” adding that KFOR would continue to protect the site.

The KFOR commander met with Abbot Sava Janjić and Dečani Mayor Rasim Selmanaj at the Dečani Monastery on Monday "and they all expressed their vehement disapproval for the act," Tanjug quoted KFOR as saying in a statement.

During the visit at the site, the Kosovo police regional commander of Pec stated that the investigations on the case were ongoing in close cooperation with the Regional Operational Support Unit, according to KFOR.

Sava Janjić told Tanjug that the monks were shocked and worried about the threatening graffiti on monastery property and that they expected more intense security measures to be ensured by KFOR and the Kosovo police on the monastery grounds.