The Nine Year-Old Powder Keg Explodes

More from Julia Gorin on the Kosovo debacle.
FROM POLITICAL MAVINS.COM:

The Nine Year-Old Powder Keg Explodes
By Julia Gorin

(bio)

From an AP photo essay:
Ethnic Albanian Adem Mripa gives a thumbs up gesture while he is being detained by Kosovo police, after finding three rocket-propelled grenades in his house in the Albanian neighbourhood of Serb-dominated ethnically divided town of Kosovska Mitrovica, Thursday, Feb. 21, 2008. KFOR also detonated another hand-grenade found in the same neighbourhood.
Text of a report from the pro-Western Belgrade-based B92 TV had more:
Ethnic Albanian head in divided Kosovo town arrested over possession of weapons [Presenter] The political leader of Albanians from northern Kosovo was today arrested in Kosovska Mitrovica, because the Kosovo police had found sniper weapons on him.
[Reporter] [On Thursday] members of the Kosovo Police Service [KPS] found three Tromblon [RPG] grenades and several pieces of ammunition for sniper weapons in the house of [chairman of Albanian Council in northern Kosovska Mitrovica] Adem Mripa, the leader of Kosovo Albanians in an ethnically mixed quarter of Bosniak mahala in the northern [Serb-populated] part of Kosovska Mitrovica, it has been confirmed to B92 in the Kosovo Police Service…
Only few hundred metres away, a bomb was found near a house owned by Jovan Ilic [a Serb], which Kfor [NATO-led Kosovo Force] subsequently destroyed.
[Ilic] This has been the eight or the ninth bomb within few hundred square metres here since 1999, which was defused by Kfor. Windows are smashed, children are scared. We have had enough, I think. It is hard life here. We will either have to move our children away or the state of Serbia should help us with strong forces, as strong as possible, and start taking care of us.
[Reporter] Following the arrest of ethnic Albanian leader in Kosovska Mitrovica, the Serbs in this part of the town are concerned over the amount of weapons found on him. This is Branislav Krstic reporting for B92.
That this is the leader of the minority Albanian community within Serb-dominated Northern Mitrovica which intends to stay with Serbia indicates that, as we knew, Albanians had operations planned for that area. The situation that I’ve been working for nine years to avoid is now playing out in Mitrovica — where we’ve forced NATO and UN into a confrontation with Serbs taking the messy matter of protecting their people and defending their country into their own hands. On that subject, a Pristina cabinet minister ominously hints at KLA-run Kosovo’s long-term plans for its Serbs:
Skender Hyseni, a cabinet minister in Pristina, told the Monitor last week regarding Mitrovica that “some issues will take time to resolve. We will continue to be patient. It will be easier to deal with the Serb community later.”