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Telegraph,UK

By Christian Jennings in Pristina
Wednesday 28 March 2001

THE SAS has seized at least five ethnic Albanians suspected of a bus bomb attack in Kosovo which killed 11 Serb civilians, including a two-year-old child.
Troops from 22 SAS were sent to Kosovo to lead the arrest operation last week, it emerged yesterday. Including those involved in surveillance, 3,000 British and Norwegian soldiers took part. A total of 22 Albanians were held.

They were held in custody in the provincial capital, Pristina, and around the north-western town of Podujevo, near the scene of the bomb blast in February last year. The attack was the worst incident in Kosovo for 18 months.

Western defence sources said that the arrest operation, which lasted 27 hours, was spearheaded by British SAS teams. The units, trained in counter-terrorist warfare and close-quarter combat, were requested by Britain's senior commander in Kosovo, Brigadier Hamish Rollo of the Royal Engineers. Soldiers from the 1st Bn the Duke of Wellington's Regiment and the 2nd Royal Tank Regiment were also involved.

After initial questioning, four Albanians were detained in connection with the bombing. They are all members of the Kosovo Protection Corps, the Western-backed civil defence organisation which sprang from the Kosovo Liberation Army when it was demilitarised in 1999. Some members of the KLA had been trained by the SAS

International security sources in Pristina said it was likely that three of the men would be freed today because of insufficient evidence. But one high-ranking KPC official is expected to be charged or kept in detention.

Although the operation was a military success, the identity of the men arrested is bound to prove highly embarrassing for Western governments.

As a supposed civil defence organisation, the KPC receives funding and training in human rights, first aid, fire-fighting and language skills from Britain, the European Union, America and a host of international organisations. They include the International Organisation for Migration and the United Nations.

Links between the KPC and organised crime and political violence are an open secret in Kosovo. The KPC's alleged involvement in the killing of the 11 Serbs - an incident which was condemned around the world - comes at a highly sensitive time for Nato and the UN in Kosovo.

At the time of the attack, Britain's senior commander in Kosovo, Brigadier Rob Fry of the Royal Marines, called it "a ruthless and premeditated act of mass murder". The explosion destroyed a bus carrying more than 50 Serbs who were returning to Kosovo after visiting their ancestors' graves in Serbia.

Since Nato troops entered Kosovo in June 1999, the UN, human rights groups and Nato sources have said that former members of the KLA have been involved in numerous incidents of murder and violence against ethnic minorities in Kosovo.

Kfor, the 44,000-strong Nato peacekeeping force in Kosovo, said the arrest operation showed "conclusive evidence of . . . absolute and unswerving commitment to defeat terrorism and extremism and to create an environment here in which democracy and the rule of law can flourish."

* Seventeen ethnic Albanian men suspected of being members of rebel groups fighting in Macedonia have been arrested in Kosovo. They were accused of having arms and ammunition.

Most were held just across the border from the flashpoint city of Tetovo. It is believed some rebels are joining columns of refugees arriving in the province as they flee clashes in Macedonia.