thedrifter
02-24-08, 09:51 AM
Marines at embassy in Belgrade hunker down, wait out chaos
By Charlie Coon, and Kent Harris
Mideast edition, Saturday, February 23, 2008
STUTTGART, Germany — The torched section of the U.S. Embassy had been extinguished on Friday and calm prevailed in Belgrade, Serbia, but NATO forces and U.S. military planners continued to scrutinize the volatile region.
About 6,000 rioters in the Serbian capital broke away from a larger, peaceful demonstration on Thursday and set fire to the U.S. Embassy, forcing a group of Marines to hunker down inside and wait out the chaos.
One person died and more than 150 people were injured in the unrest in central Belgrade, police said. Nearly 200 people were arrested and 90 shops ransacked, officials said.
Serbs protesting Kosovo’s independence for a fifth-straight day on Friday attacked U.N. police guarding a key bridge in Mitrovica, northern Kosovo, with stones, glass, bottles and firecrackers.
NATO troops in the former province, 200 miles south of Belgrade, were standing by if they needed to come to the aid of police, said French Navy Capt. Bertrand Bonneau, spokesman for the NATO-led Kosovo Force.
Bonneau said the situation remained tense in Mitrovica, the most volatile area. Thousands of residents from Serbia were reportedly set to join Friday with Kosovo Serb students who have been protesting daily in the city.
“We are monitoring the situation very carefully,” Bonneau said.
In Stuttgart, Germany, troops at the European Plans and Operations Center, part of the U.S. European Command headquarters, opened communications lines with their security counterparts in the Balkans, including in Belgrade.
The command has not been asked to provide additional troops or aircraft in response to the crisis, said Lt. Col. John Dorrian. The situation in Belgrade, he noted, was being handled by Serbian authorities while U.S. forces attached to the NATO mission were far removed from the Belgrade unrest.
Dorrian said he did not know if the military readied aircraft in case an evacuation of embassy personnel was needed, adding “it wouldn’t surprise me if that’s on somebody’s checklist.”
“We did notify people who might be required to respond in event this escalated to a larger-scale emergency,” Dorrian said. “But that’s part of our normal operating procedure in case something significant happens in our area of responsibility.”
The U.S. Embassy in Belgrade had closed at noon Thursday in anticipation of the demonstration, according to Master Sgt. John Finnegan of Marine Security Guard Detachment Belgrade.
The group of Marines and security personnel who remained passed the time until the situation escalated later in the day.
Finnegan said a group of rioters, which later grew to an estimated 6,000, had broken away from the peaceful, main group of demonstrators and converged outside the embassy.
“There were too many for the police to handle and a whole lot more were on the way,” Finnegan said. “The police couldn’t help us out and (rioters) had free access to the embassy.
“We made the call to pull everybody back. We got everybody to a safe area and hunkered down.”
The Marines monitored the situation from their safe area inside the embassy by using computers and watching CNN, Finnegan said.
“It was a little tense,” Finnegan said.
The Marines’ priorities were to protect classified material and State Department personnel and facilities, Finnegan said.
“They did an outstanding job,” he said. “There’s a standard that we train to and they pulled it off. Nobody whined or complained. Everybody did exactly what they needed to do when they needed to do it.”
The embassy was scheduled to remain closed through Monday.
At the sprawling Camp Bondsteel compound in Kosovo, part of the NATO-led Kosovo Forces mission, or KFOR, calm prevailed in the U.S.-led eastern sector, said Capt. Jeff Blowers in a telephone interview.
Blowers is commander of Company B, 34th Infantry Division from the Minnesota National Guard.
Blowers said that the battalion’s Company A is stationed at Camp Nothing Hill, a multinational facility near the border with Serbia in the French-led sector.
Troops from that base were called to the border earlier this week after a post manned by police was attacked. Blowers said he couldn’t talk about what kind of operations that company had performed, but said no U.S. forces were wounded.
The Associated Press contributed to this report]
Ellie
By Charlie Coon, and Kent Harris
Mideast edition, Saturday, February 23, 2008
STUTTGART, Germany — The torched section of the U.S. Embassy had been extinguished on Friday and calm prevailed in Belgrade, Serbia, but NATO forces and U.S. military planners continued to scrutinize the volatile region.
About 6,000 rioters in the Serbian capital broke away from a larger, peaceful demonstration on Thursday and set fire to the U.S. Embassy, forcing a group of Marines to hunker down inside and wait out the chaos.
One person died and more than 150 people were injured in the unrest in central Belgrade, police said. Nearly 200 people were arrested and 90 shops ransacked, officials said.
Serbs protesting Kosovo’s independence for a fifth-straight day on Friday attacked U.N. police guarding a key bridge in Mitrovica, northern Kosovo, with stones, glass, bottles and firecrackers.
NATO troops in the former province, 200 miles south of Belgrade, were standing by if they needed to come to the aid of police, said French Navy Capt. Bertrand Bonneau, spokesman for the NATO-led Kosovo Force.
Bonneau said the situation remained tense in Mitrovica, the most volatile area. Thousands of residents from Serbia were reportedly set to join Friday with Kosovo Serb students who have been protesting daily in the city.
“We are monitoring the situation very carefully,” Bonneau said.
In Stuttgart, Germany, troops at the European Plans and Operations Center, part of the U.S. European Command headquarters, opened communications lines with their security counterparts in the Balkans, including in Belgrade.
The command has not been asked to provide additional troops or aircraft in response to the crisis, said Lt. Col. John Dorrian. The situation in Belgrade, he noted, was being handled by Serbian authorities while U.S. forces attached to the NATO mission were far removed from the Belgrade unrest.
Dorrian said he did not know if the military readied aircraft in case an evacuation of embassy personnel was needed, adding “it wouldn’t surprise me if that’s on somebody’s checklist.”
“We did notify people who might be required to respond in event this escalated to a larger-scale emergency,” Dorrian said. “But that’s part of our normal operating procedure in case something significant happens in our area of responsibility.”
The U.S. Embassy in Belgrade had closed at noon Thursday in anticipation of the demonstration, according to Master Sgt. John Finnegan of Marine Security Guard Detachment Belgrade.
The group of Marines and security personnel who remained passed the time until the situation escalated later in the day.
Finnegan said a group of rioters, which later grew to an estimated 6,000, had broken away from the peaceful, main group of demonstrators and converged outside the embassy.
“There were too many for the police to handle and a whole lot more were on the way,” Finnegan said. “The police couldn’t help us out and (rioters) had free access to the embassy.
“We made the call to pull everybody back. We got everybody to a safe area and hunkered down.”
The Marines monitored the situation from their safe area inside the embassy by using computers and watching CNN, Finnegan said.
“It was a little tense,” Finnegan said.
The Marines’ priorities were to protect classified material and State Department personnel and facilities, Finnegan said.
“They did an outstanding job,” he said. “There’s a standard that we train to and they pulled it off. Nobody whined or complained. Everybody did exactly what they needed to do when they needed to do it.”
The embassy was scheduled to remain closed through Monday.
At the sprawling Camp Bondsteel compound in Kosovo, part of the NATO-led Kosovo Forces mission, or KFOR, calm prevailed in the U.S.-led eastern sector, said Capt. Jeff Blowers in a telephone interview.
Blowers is commander of Company B, 34th Infantry Division from the Minnesota National Guard.
Blowers said that the battalion’s Company A is stationed at Camp Nothing Hill, a multinational facility near the border with Serbia in the French-led sector.
Troops from that base were called to the border earlier this week after a post manned by police was attacked. Blowers said he couldn’t talk about what kind of operations that company had performed, but said no U.S. forces were wounded.
The Associated Press contributed to this report]
Ellie