US monitoring large Serbian force along Kosovo border

30/9/2023 7:01

        The United States is
        monitoring a troubling Serbian military deployment along the
        border of Kosovo that is destabilizing the area, the White House
        said on Friday and called for the forces to be withdrawn.
        
        White House national security spokesperson John Kirby told
        reporters that Kosovo's peacekeeping force is going to be
        increasing its presence of NATO forces in northern Kosovo as a
        result of the tensions.
        
        Kosovo authorities said police fought around 30 heavily
        armed Serbs who stormed the Kosovo village of Banjska on Sunday
        and barricaded themselves in a Serbian Orthodox monastery. Three
        attackers and one police officer were killed.
        
        The gunbattle has prompted new international concern over
        stability in Kosovo, which has an ethnic Albanian majority and
        declared independence from Serbia in 2008 after a guerrilla
        uprising and a 1999 NATO intervention.
        
        Kirby said the attack was not a random one and that the
        amount of types of arms that were found represent a threat not
        only to Kosovo personnel but international personnel, including
        NATO troops.