Inhabitants of the Pristina suburb Suncani Breg were at first not too alarmed when they heard machine gun fire in the late afternoon on Thursday, December 3. "We thought someone was celebrating something," says one inhabitant of the suburb; Suncani Breg is mostly a middle class suburb of modern high rises. This time, though, it was different: a navy blue Renault was left riddled with bullets at the crossroads leading to the main road. Corpses of three men were in the car. The unidentified attackers sped away in a car after firing about 30 bullets from a Kalashnikov at their victims. Everyone in the Renault was killed on the spot.
The very same evening, the Police revealed that weapons were found in the car - among other a machine gun, and gave the name of one of the slain individuals. That was Illir Durmishi who, although in his thirties, is still officially a student. At first it seemed that this was a typical Mafia-style showdown, similar to those that take place from time to time in all larger towns in Serbia. However, once the names of the other two victims were announced, the incident appeared to be much more serious. One of the other two was Afrim Malliqi, the culture desk editor in the daily newspaper Bujku. The other one was Hizri Tala, a high-ranking officer of the illegal Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in "sub-operation zone Lap", which covers the Podujevo region. Not only that: Tala was the main officer for security in Podujevo and as such had the rank of the deputy commander.
AMBUSH: Soon, it was found out why Tala was in Pristina: his wife, who lives in Suncani Breg, had given birth to a daughter two weeks before. Tala took a short "leave" to visit the two of them. The link with the slain journalist and "student" Durmishi was also explained. Namely, late Malliqi was Tala's best friend since before the war and Durmishi was his cousin. Malliqi's father Hilmiju stated for the Pristina daily newspaper Kosovo Sot that Tala and Afrim were "inseparable" and that "Hizri visited Pristina often". In the same statement Hilmiju Malliqi said that the group had celebrated the birth of Tala's daughter the previous night and that on the day of murder "Afrim asked Illir to go somewhere". "They had no chance of escaping," he said, adding that his son and the two friends were killed "in a very professional manner".
True, there are indications that Tala's assassination was prepared and executed in the manner that resembles a typical Belgrade Mafia-style ambush. One of the inhabitants of Suncani Breg, who for obvious reasons would like to stay anonymous, says that he began to notice strangers in black leather jackets and radio stations on the block several days before the murder, but that he didn't pay attention. "They looked like plain clothes policemen. I thought that they were there to arrest someone." Other witnesses say that a white Volkswagen Golf was noticed near the murder spot and that it sped away immediately after the shooting, so that it is assumed that "a back-up group" was in the car.
The Albanian side is, of course, convinced that Tala, Malliqi, and Durmishi were killed by the Serb Police. KLA issued a statement swearing revenge, and Tala was buried near Podujevo like a hero with adulatory speeches and military honors. Adem Demaci, the general political representative of KLA, accepted the loss with a degree of resignation: "There are a lot of Serb secret agents in Pristina," stated Demaci for Vreme. "There is the provincial secret police, republican, and federal secret police... They know and control everything. That was an adventure, and those who seek adventure must be prepared to pay for it," concluded Demaci.
The Police denied its participation in the assassination. An official statement confirmed that "the investigation has not been completed". Nevertheless, unofficially, one can hear that Tala is probably a victim of an internal KLA conflict, or that he was murdered because of a debt. "It would have been a success for us to catch Tala alive. Dead, he is not worth much," stated a police source.
The circumstances are additionally complicated if it is known that Tala "questioned" inspector Zbiljic from Podujevo, who had been kept by KLA for two weeks and then released in late November. Zbiljic's release was quite a surprise, since it was the first time that a policeman survived an ordeal with KLA. Zbiljic stated after the stint in KLA "investigative prison" that Tala treated him "correctly, even professionally". Besides Tala is given credit for the uncovering of certain Fadil Suljevic, a former policeman who was a member of KLA until he came to be suspected of being a double agent. Today he is officially missing.
WWII Partisans: Nevertheless, many in Pristina and Podujevo are concerned because of Tala's death, since this murder breaks an unofficial agreement that such things shouldn't be done. Namely, it is known that some KLA officers from time to time discretely visit Pristina and other towns for a day or two to see their relatives and finish some business, and it seemed that that was tolerated. On the other hand, KLA probably knows where Pristina policemen live and follows their movement. Nevertheless, KLA has so far avoided setting up ambushes in towns, except when the "loyal Albanians" were concerned. It seems that the hunting season on "loyal Albanians" is always open. In other words, both sides know that they are very vulnerable to this sort of attacks and that a single reckless step could start a spiral of bloody incidents in towns.
On the day when Tala was murdered, there was an armed incident in the center of Pec. One person died in the incident, while at least five were wounded. There, KLA tried, in the manner of WWII Partisan guerillas, to get one of its wounded from the hospital. According to the statements of the witnesses a man and a woman entered the hospital in the middle of the day and attacked Mitar Stanisic, the policeman guarding the room of the wounded KLA member. Allegedly, when Stanisic demanded papers from the man, he took pepper spray from his pocket and sprayed Stanisic in his eyes. The woman, later identified as Mirveta Maksutaj, pulled out a gun and aimed at Stanisic while the man tried to grab his machine gun. The policeman somehow managed to regain control of his weapon and started shooting. The bullets killed Mirveta, while the man escaped. Five civilians, one of them a boy, were wounded by ricocheting bullets and everything would have ended up even worse had the hand grenade, released by Mirveta in her escape attempt, exploded. Five days later, on December 8, three persons were killed in a cafe in Djakovica when an Albanian man, after a fight with friends went home and returned armed with a machine gun. He fired at his friends. The murderer is at large and it is scary to think what would have happened had the participants in the fight been of different nationalities.
Although obviously unrelated to the assassination in Pristina, the incidents in Pec and Djakovica are another indication that Kosovo towns and cities are becoming less safe than villages, which are for now quiet under snow cover. And the winter has only begun.