Albanian National Army

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Logo of the AKSh

AKSh ( Armata Kombëtare Shqiptare ; German: Albanian National Army, ANA for short) is the Albanian name of an armed group mainly active in Kosovo . Members of this organization mainly continued the work started by the KLA .

history

According to the AKSh, it was founded in December 1999 after the UÇK was dissolved. Organization with a (para) military structure, which has been committed to military guerrilla operations in Kosovo, southern Serbia and Macedonia since 1999 . Among the high-ranking leaders of this organization are the names Naser Azemi, Gazmend Zeqiri and Feriz Deliu.

The group maintains connections with former members of the Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC) and tries to establish connections with several Albanian organizations.

The Serbian government suspects that the AKSh is preparing an invasion of southern Serbia and is carrying out illegal identity checks in various cities. In 2003, masked and armed men are said to have set up a control base in the Pej / Peć area. KFOR offices categorically reject the allegations and rumors of the Serbian side. Nevertheless, at the end of 2002 two Kosovar Albanians who are included in the group were indicted and sentenced by UNMIK . They were accused of terrorism , incitement to racial hatred , involvement in a terrorist organization, recruiting of volunteers and illegal possession of weapons and ammunition.

The main goal of the relatively young group of Albanian separatists is to unite all the areas inhabited by Albanians in the Balkans ( Ulcinj (Montenegro), Kosovo, southern Serbia, Ilirida (western Macedonia)), which, in their opinion, was caused by the wrong demarcation of 1912 when the State of Albania outside its borders. The AKSh's command structure seems to be following the same strategy that the Macedonian UÇK , which was dissolved in September 2001 , used. This concentrated its actions on the border areas between Kosovo and Macedonia, which were not adequately guarded by the international protection force KFOR, and recruited the necessary fighters in the Yugoslav province.

All agreements of the Ohrid Framework Agreement of summer 2001, which provide for an extension of the political rights of the Albanian-speaking minority in Macedonia, were declared irrelevant by the AKSh and made it clear that this agreement was not an obstacle on the way to a new Albanian state.

The organization seems to be completely shielded from the outside through secrecy or the use of pseudonyms . The AKSh has assumed responsibility for several attacks in the past, such as the attack on a railway bridge north of Mitrovica in April 2003. On July 30, 2003 the political leader of the FBKSh ( Frontit për Bashkim Kombëtar Shqiptar / Front für Albanische Nationale Association) Gafurr Adili, who is considered the political leader of the AKSh, arrested in Albania. He was released in November 2003 for unproven guilt. The FBKSh secretary at the time was later arrested in Germany and extradited to Albania, where he was arrested. No guilt could be proven with him either.

On October 4, 2007, the Kosovar public television station RTK broadcast a video that is said to show around a dozen armed AKSh fighters. At the end of 2007, the AKSh were on patrols in northern Kosovo in the area populated by Serbs. Since the declaration of independence of Kosovo, the group has hardly appeared.