A Fake Macedonia Terror Tale That Led to Deaths

Roughly two months after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, a group of high-level officials met here in Macedonia's Interior Ministry to determine how their country could take part in the United States-led campaign against terror.
Instead of offering troops to support American soldiers fighting in Afghanistan, as other countries in the region had done, senior officials and police commanders conceived a plan to "expose" a terrorist plot against Western interests in Skopje, police investigators here say.
The plan, they say, involved luring foreign migrants into the country, executing them in a staged gun battle, and then claiming they were a unit backed by Al Qaeda intent on attacking Western embassies.
On March 2, 2002, this plan came to fruition when Interior Minister Ljube Boskovski announced that seven "mujahedeen" had been killed earlier that day in a shootout with the police near Skopje. Photos were released to Western diplomats showing bodies of the dead men with bags of uniforms and semiautomatic weapons at their side.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/17/international/europe/17mace.html?th

Unfortunately, staged "terror" events for political purposes actually occur. :(
We "non-conspiracy" types need to remember this ...

On the other hand, FAKTI believes that all this was Boshkovki's spectacle in order to achieve some effects. The first objective is to include Macedonia in the global scheme of the war against terrorism. He also aimed to impose himself to the foreign diplomats by stationing military transporters in front of the embassies, to promote “Lions” and to find a link between NLA, and Al Qaeda and mujahedins, hypothetically referring that the problems are coming from Kosovo. In its first information FAKTI suspected that the persons killed are Albanians. This was probably based on the statement of Deputy Minister of Interior, Refet Elmazi for Deutche Welle in Albanian on Saturday, when he said exactly the same.

The following days the newspapers revealed new information and addressed new issues. “Terrorists have come from Afghanistan”, says Minister Boshkovski for VECER. On the other hand NOVA MAKEDONIJA informs that “4 persons have been arrested in Gevgelija”, implying a connection with the eliminated group. UTRINSKI VESNIK wonders whether “the terrorists have been killed somewhere else”? Referring to Boshkovski, DNEVNIK claims that “two of the killed persons are Pakistanis”. This daily also printed the announcement of the ANA that “Boshkovski is 'saving” the embassies, so he can avoid Hague”.

“In a police action, where a group of armed foreigners has been eliminated, Ministry of Interior had a chance for a complete effect. But, the amateurs lead by the Minister gave two different announcements. Then they started the fiestas with the transporters near the embassies and later on they left relevant foreign factors without any essential information for the persons, which instantly resulted with suspicion”, wrote Lubomir Frckovski in his column for DNEVNIK. The next day the same newspaper quoted NATO Ambassador, Klaus Folers, who stated that “foxes” (members of the NATO mission in Macedonia) haven't seen the killed Pakistanis. Referring to the statements of chiefs of Parliamentarian groups, PDPs Naser Zyberi and DPAs Zamir Dika, UTRINSKI VESNIK informed on Wednesday that Albanian political representatives have asked for arbitrage regarding the Rashtak Vineyards' case. According to Zyberi, “statements of the Prime Minister and the Minister of Interior contradict one-another” and that “it is very evident that it's not about a group of terrorists infiltrated from abroad”, whereas Dika asks for arbitrage, which will clarify what has really happened.

Daily VEST informed on Wednesday that “NATO is not aware yet who and how is eliminated… The Alliance Ambassador still doesn't know who are the 7 persons, where do they come from, where they have headed, what did they want to do with that large quantity of arms and whom they wanted to attack? Further on, if those persons were not from here, did they have any local person to guide them, and if not, how did they know on which roads and directions they should go or move?”. The same day VECER quoted Government Spokesman, Georgi Trendafilov, who said that Minister Boshkovski hasn't presented any information regarding “the Rashtak's Vineyards case” to the Government, because of the investigation. VECER finalized this saga on Thursday by claiming that “the paraffin test on Islamic terrorists is a new evidence that the killed persons have been mujahedins”. This daily also claims that the group has been observed for a long time by the Macedonian security structures (since December 2001) and that ANA in Lojane, Vaksince and Slupcane has accommodated these persons. It is also said that they have communicating with Motorola equipment in Albanian language and while doing this they have used the word 'devil' for the United States and western allies, which “certainly indicates that these persons were mujahedins…”.

more
http://www.medienhilfe.ch/Monitor/MAC/isorusi.htm

The migrants - six Pakistanis and one Indian - had hoped to make their way to Western Europe, when they were contacted by the traffickers, and offered the possibility of traveling to Greece, the Interior Ministry official said. The Pakistanis were later identified as Muhammed Riaz, Omar Farooq, Syed Bilal, Hussein Shah, Asif Javed, and Khalid Iqbal. The name of the Indian remains unknown.

They were brought across the border and housed in Delcevo for one night, after which they were driven to Skopje and taken to an apartment, where they were given food and clothing. The official could not say how long the men were kept in the apartment.

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"Only their general knew that they were not real terrorists," said the official.

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At 2 a.m. on March 2, the official said, the seven Asian men were driven in a minivan to a vineyard on the outskirts of Skopje and left there. Once their driver left, four members of the Lions opened fire on the men with automatic weapons, killing all seven.

sick, I am just sick of the corruption of goverments intent on the deaths of innocent people.

:kick:

This is like something Bush and Cheney would come up with, or maybe I should say are currently planning now that their ratings are plunging.

,...where the "blanket" of "terrorism" was abused to achieve an ignoble ends. This leadership has proven to be poor teachers.