A mysterious attack in northern Kosovo rattles everyone

Serbia’s president, its intelligence services and its armed forces were all involved in a plot to seize control of the north of Kosovo last month. At least, so says Xhelal Svecla, Kosovo’s minister of the interior. A Serbian paramilitary group was discovered by a passing police patrol, three Serbs died in a shoot-out, a Kosovo Albanian policeman was killed by a remote-controlled mine, and a huge cache of weapons was left behind by the group as it fled. Mr Svecla says this was all part of a plan by the Serbian authorities to seize control of Kosovo’s north with a proxy force, in emulation of Russia’s grab of parts of Ukraine’s Donbas in 2014.