Three Serb security forces personnel arrested inside Kosovo following a British-led intelligence operation were planning to ambush and destroy international targets, including United Nations institutions, in the runup to Kosovo's October elections, military and intelligence sources in Kosovo and Britain have told The Irish Times.
In a midnight raid on Monday, codenamed "Operation Ambuscate", British and Swedish NATO troops arrested three Serbs, two of them allegedly members of the Serb army special forces, in three properties in the central Kosovan town of Gracanica.
In the raid on the Serb enclave three properties were searched and explosives, detonators, weapons, timing-devices and hand-grenades discovered.
"We believe their targets were going to be buildings, NATO and UN vehicles, international targets, both in Pristina and Gracanica," said one international official. "Given that any attack on Albanians inside Pristina would also include an attack on internationals, we can say that they would have been targeted too," said a senior UN official.
A NATO source said that offices and buildings of the Organisation for Security and CoOperation in Europe, or OSCE, were also thought to have been planned as targets for the Serb insurgency cell, which had infiltrated Kosovo from the Serbian town of Nis on several occasions over the last few weeks, according to UN police officials.
"We got to these guys before they had had a chance to bring in all their material from Serbia," said the UN official. "If all of their explosives and weapons had been bought into Kosovo and used, then there would have been many casualties."
There are 43,000 NATO troops based in Kosovo from some 30 countries, some 3,500 UN staff, and more than 300 aid organisations working in Kosovo.
The three arrested Serbs had 1.25 kilos of plastic explosive in their possession, and intelligence officials believe more would have been bought in following an initial terrorist attack due to have taken place inside Kosovo in the run-up to this weekend's Yugoslavian elections.
"Operation Ambuscate" drew on domestic and military intelligence resources from Britain, Sweden and other European countries, but Royal Ulster Constabulary officers attached to Kosovo's UN police are understood to have played a leading role in the intelligence operation that led to Monday night's raid.
Britain's senior commander in Kosovo, Royal Marines Brig Rob Fry, said there was "compelling" evidence to link the men to the Serb armed forces.
A British prosecutor, Mr Garry Garland, has been assigned to the case in Pristina, where the three men are being questioned by UN police.
Under de facto law in Kosovo, prisoners can be held for up to 72 hours without charge.