Ismet Hajdari -
One of Europe’s smallest countries, Kosovo has produced more than its fair share of battle-hardened fighters whom it is now trying to rehabilitate after their return home from Syria and Iraq.
The fear is, however, that holding and isolating them in prison may only make the problem worse.
“Religious sects are better organised than the prison authorities,” said Sami Lushtaku, a former Kosovo Liberation Army commander, who was jailed, then acquitted over crimes committed during the 1998-99 independence war.
Lushtaku’s widely-reported remark during an interview with several TV channels followed his detention in two jails, including a high-security centre in Gerdoc, 25 km from the capital, Pristina.
For the government of this small, mostly-Muslim Balkan nation, the returning fighters are seen as a real threat.
“Kosovo is threatened by those returning from war zones who intend to attack the multi-ethnic and multi-religious character of Kosovo, its democratic government and its secular society,” it said in a 2018-22 action plan.
Visar Duriqi, a Kosovo journalist specialising in religious affairs, said isolating the jailed fighters can “prevent them from exerting any influence on people who have already broken the law and are more fragile.”
But there is an ongoing debate over the strategy, with opponents arguing it only further alienates the fighters and that, if they are to return to normal, they must be treated like any other prisoner.
According to official estimates, some 300 Kosovans fought with Al Qaeda’s Syrian ex-affiliate Al Nusra Front or the IS group since 2012.
More than 50 were killed but 130 have returned to Kosovo, with around 80 in all detained.
A 2015 law stipulates an up to 15-year jail term for returning fighters and all others who fight in foreign conflicts. “Relative to its population of 1.8 million, Kosovo is arguably the largest source of European fighters in Syria and Iraq,” according to estimates from 2015 by the US think-tank, the Combating Terrorism Centre. For the vice-minister of security forces, Burim Ramadani, “the main challenge is to make these men patriots and not to reinforce their hostility.”
The Islamic Community of Kosovo (BIK) plans to have 20 imams under its supervision visit the fighters. Radical fighters should be engaged “in a reflection that will make them become normal citizens... they should not be left to their world,” chief mufti of the BIK,
Sabri Bajgora, said. — AFP
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