Standoff between gunmen and Kosovo authorities at monastery ends

The standoff between gunmen and Kosovo authorities at a monastery near the Serbian border ended on Sunday night (September 24), the interior minister in Pristina said, after police regained control of the area. 

“We put this territory under control. It was done after several consecutive battles,” Xhelal Svecla, the Minister of Internal Affairs, told reporters.

Kosovo police had released a statement saying that an officer and three gunmen had lost their lives in a shooting around the village of Banjska in the country’s north on Sunday (September 24) after Pristina said around 30 attackers stormed the village.

Earlier, Prime Minister Albin Kurti released a statement saying that at least 30 gunmen were surrounded by authorities in north Kosovo and called for their surrender.

“There are at least 30 professional, military or police armed people who are surrounded by our police forces and whom I invite to surrender to our security agencies,” said Kurti during a press conference.

He further added that the group was located in and around a monastery near the village of Banjska, where the patrol had been ambushed early on Sunday (September 24).

Kurti took to social media and said, “At this moment, gunfire with various caliber firearms against our police is still ongoing.”

“The attackers are professionals wearing masks and heavily armed,” he further wrote describing the incident.

The Serbia Orthodox Church released a statement confirming that the gunmen had stormed a monastery in Banjska, where pilgrims from the northern Serbian city of Novi Sad were staying. 

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Kosovo police released a statement early on Sunday saying that two heavy vehicles without license plates were placed on a bridge in the village of Banjska, blockading the entrance and firing at the police units that arrived “with an arsenal of firearms, including hand grenades and arm launchers”.

“We can see armed people in uniforms… they are firing on us and we are firing back,” Kosovo police official Veton Elshan told news agency AFP telephonically from Banjska.

PM Kurti’s comments came hours after he called the ambush an act of terrorism and condemned the Serbian government for it. 

“Organised crime with political, financial and logistical support from officials in Belgrade is attacking our country,” he wrote on social media.

Later, Serbian state media outlet RTS reported that Jarinje and Brnjak border crossings between Serbia and Kosovo were shut down.

Talks with Serbia have reached dead end, says Kurti

Talks between Kosovo and Serbia, that were brokered by the European Union, have reached a dead end, said Kurti as per The Guardian.

Kurti, in a conversation with the outlet, defined the latest unsuccessful meeting between him and the Serbian president Aleksandar Vučić, which took place on September 14 as a fiasco and said that the EU special envoy, Miroslav Lajčák, had “lost neutrality”.

“There is no moving further with this method,” Kurti said. “The 14 September [meeting] showed the limits of old methods.”

“He offends and curses in Serbian quite often throughout these two years,” Kurti said. “I asked the mediators to stop him and to condemn it but that never happens.”

EU condemns ‘hideous attack’

The EU’s top diplomat Josep Borrell fiercely condemned the “hideous attack” on Kosovo police that claimed the life of one officer.

“I condemn in the strongest possible terms the hideous attack by an armed gang against Kosovo police officers in Banjska/Banjske in the north of Kosovo, which left one police officer dead and two injured,” he said in a statement, calling for the violence to cease.

“All facts about the attack need to be established. The responsible perpetrators must face justice,” he said.

(With inputs from agencies)

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