On September 24, armed Serb paramilitaries ambushed a police patrol near the village of Banjska in the northern part of Kosovo, killing one police officer. The gunmen then fled to a monastery near the Kosovo-Serbia border, where police forces engaged with them in a firefight. Three armed Serbs were killed; the rest were either arrested or managed to flee. It was one of the worst episodes of violence in the country since the end of the Kosovo war in 1999.
In the aftermath of the incident, Belgrade and Pristina traded blame. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said that the Kosovo government’s “terror” had driven the Serb minority in the northern part of the country to an “uprising”. Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti accused Serbia of supporting financially and logistically “organised crime” groups attacking his country – something Belgrade denied.
