Kosovo seizes certificate proving Serbia's involvement in armed clash: Interior minister

BELGRADE, Serbia

Kosovo's interior minister said Wednesday that evidence is mounting that Serbia is involved in “terrorist action” in his country as he posted pictures of a document and arms.

Posted the pictures on Facebook that showed certificates directly linking the Serbian army to the transfer of a grenade launcher which was sized from a Serbian armed group after a fight between police and gunmen left an officer dead and another wounded in northern Kosovo.

“This document is proof that the Serbian army provided to the group on the occasion of the delivery of the grenade launcher, which was then seized by the Kosovo Police on the September 24th action,” wrote Svecla.

In a different separate post, he claimed that it was confirmed that one of those killed in the operation was Bojan Mijailovic -- the bodyguard of Serbian Security Intelligence Agency (BIA) chief Aleksandar Vulin during his visit to Kosovo in 2013.

“The State of Serbia is the leading leg involved in this terrorist attack aimed at destabilizing the Republic of Kosovo. For this, there is already a formal and structural link between Aleksandar Vucic's involvement in the September 24 attack in Banjska,” said Svecla.

“These two are the closest people to the Serbian president,” he added.

A fight broke out in the northern Kosovo village of Bajska near the Serbian border when a group of armed Serbs blocked a bridge. A shootout erupted when the group opened fire on police.

Several security forces were dispatched to the region, and the Brnjak border crossing between Kosovo and Serbia was closed.

The area has been the scene of unrest since April, when local ethnic Serbs boycotted elections in northern Kosovo, followed by protests against the election of ethnic Albanian mayors.

Albanians are by far the largest ethnic group in Kosovo, followed by Serbs, with about half living in the north.

Amid the unrest concerning the elections, NATO peacekeepers were deployed, including a group of extra Turkish reinforcements.

Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008 and gained recognition from many countries, including Türkiye. But Serbia has never recognized Kosovo and claims it is still part of Serbia.