An Ambush for the Commander

 The inhabitants of Suncani Breg, a Pristina suburb, weren't too worried at first when they heard shooting in their neighborhood, a week ago Thursday. They thought someone was celebrating something, but they were wrong. A dark blue Renault with three dead bodies in it was left in the middle of the road after the shooting. Unidentified assailants got away after firing whole rounds from their kalashnikovs into the victims.

The same evening, police said that weapons had been found in the bullet-riddled vehicle, and they identified one of the victims. They identified Iljir Durmisi, who had an official record as a student although he was in his thirties. The full extent of the incident was revealed when the other two victims were identified. One of them was Arif Maliqi, an editor of the Pristina daily Bujku published in Albanian. The other was Hizri Tala, a ranking officer of the illegal Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in the "Lap operation zone", enrolling Podujevo and the nearby villages. Tala was also Podujevo's chief security officer, and had the rank of assistant commander as such.

The reasons for Tala's arrival in Pristina were learned soon. His wife, who lives in Suncani Breg, gave birth to a little girl a few weeks before the assassination so Tala took a few days off to see them. His connection to "student" Durmisi was also clarified. Maliqi was Tala's best friend from back in he times of peace and Durmisi was his nephew. Maliqi's father, Hilmiju, told the Pristina daily Kosovo Sot that Tala and Afrim were inseparable, and that Hizri came to Pristina very often. He also said that they had celebrated the birth of Hizri's daughter the night before, and that Afrim had called Iljir to "go somewhere".

"They had no chance to escape their assassins", he said, adding that his son and the other two victims were executed "very professionally".

Indeed, there is a lot to suggest that Tala's assassination was prepared and executed in a way that bears a striking resemblance to recent hits in Belgrade. One of Suncevi Breg's inhabitants, who quite understandably preferred to stay anonymous, said he had noticed strangers with black jackets and mobile radio stations in the suburb a few days before the hit. He added that he didn't pay any attention to them.

"They looked like plainclothes policemen. I thought they came to arrest somebody", he said. Other witnesses say that a white Volkswagen Golf, which sped away moments after the shooting, was seen near the murder scene, meaning that it was probably the getaway car.

Naturally, ethnic Albanians are convinced that Tala, Durmisi and Maliqi were executed by the Serbian secret service. The KLA has released a statement vowing to get revenge, while Tala was buried as a hero near Podujevo. His funeral included an appropriate speech and a fifteen-gun salute.

Adem Demaqi, the KLA political representative, commented on the assassination in a rather philosophical manner. "There are lots of secret police in Pristina", he told the weekly Vreme. "There is the provincial secret police, the republican secret police and the federal secret police. It was an adventure, and those who seek adventure must be prepared to pay the price", Demaqi said.

Police denied any involvement in the hit, having released the usual statement that "investigation is in progress". However, unofficial sources have revealed that Tala's death came as a result of either a conflict within the KLA or an unpaid debt. "We would have been happy to have him alive, but he is of no use to us dead", a police source said.
The circumstances surrounding Tala's death are even more complicated in light of the fact that he was the one who interrogated a Serb police inspector who was taken prisoner and later released by the KLA late last month. His release came as some surprise, bearing in mind that not a single other Serb policeman has lived after being captured by the KLA. After spending some time in KLA "detention", the Serb inspector said that Tala treated him very professionally. Tala was also credited with revealing the cover of one Suljevic, a former police officer who was with the KLA for a while until the organization's ranks became suspicious that he might be a double agent. Suljevic is officially missing.

In any case, many people in Podujevo and Pristina are very upset with Tala's assassination, because his death has violated the tacit agreement that such actions are not to be taken any more. It is no secret that other KLA officers used to visit Pristina and other Kosovo towns for a day or two discretely to see their relatives or to get a few things done, and it seemed that their "excursions" were being tolerated. On the other hand, the KLA probably knows where Pristina's police officers reside and monitors their movement, but has been more or less reluctant to ambush them in towns up to this point except for "loyal ethnic Albanians", on whom the hunting season is apparently open round the clock. In other words, both sides know too well that they are very vulnerable to this kind of attack, meaning that one unwise move could trace a path to a series of bloody reprisals throughout Kosovo.

One person was killed and at least five were wounded in a shootout that occurred in downtown Pecs the same day Tala was assassinated. The KLA tried to get one of its wounded members out of the Pecs hospital. According to eyewitnesses, a man and a woman walked into the hospital in broad daylight and attacked Mitar Stanisic, a Serb policeman guarding the wounded KLA member's room. Allegedly, the man took a spray can out of his pocket and used it on the police officer when he asked for identification documents, while the woman, later identified as 20-year-old Mirveta Maksutaj, drew a gun and pointed it at Stanisic. The man tried to snatch his rifle, but Stanisic managed to retrieve his weapon and kill Mirveta while the man got away. Five civilians, including one boy, were wounded by the ricochets that cannoned off the hospital walls. The death toll would have been much higher had the hand grenade dropped by Mirveta exploded. Five days later, three persons were killed in a shootout in a Djakovica tea shop, when an ethnic Albanian got into a fight with his friends, went home to get his rifle and then opened fire when he came back. He is still at large, and it is too terrible to even imagine what would have happened had any Serbs been involved in the incident.

Although the two incidents obviously have nothing to do with Tala's assassination, they imply that Kosovo's towns have become more dangerous than villages where deep snow has put an end to fighting. And the winter has just started.