Chapter 29

29

Kosovo

“Looks like it’s time to get out and take a little walk,” the lieutenant said to the sergeant driving the vehicle. The old logging road trailing through the forests north of Mitrovica had finally dead-ended at the foot of a steep mountain thick with trees. The air was heavy with the smell of pine and diesel exhaust.

The Iveco VM 90T Torpedo, an Italian version of a Humvee, pulled to a stop. The driver radioed back to the trailing Torpedo. Within minutes, the lieutenant and twenty of his Italian carabinieri had dismounted. One man remained stationed behind the machine gun affixed to each Torpedo while the others did weapons and gear checks. They wore camouflaged uniforms and large red armbands marked KFOR MSU—Kosovo Force Multinational Specialized Unit.

The MSU, part of NATO’s ongoing peacekeeping efforts in the turbulent region, had been stationed in Kosovo since 1999. They were well known and largely respected by the locals on both sides of the conflict.

Lieutenant Salvio Bonucci’s unit normally policed Mitrovica, where it was stationed. No easy task. The city itself was a microcosm of the larger regional conflict.

Muslim-majority Kosovo had broken away from Christian Serbia after Yugoslavia dissolved in 1992. Serbia opposed it. Though the UN refused to authorize it, NATO both initiated a deadly bombing campaign against Serbia to force the issue and recognized Kosovo’s independence.

Tensions were still high all these years later. In Mitrovica, the MSU provided a buffering function between the hostile Christian Serb majority in the north part of town and the restive Muslim minority in the south.

But today Bonucci’s specialized platoon had been sent out of the city and into the forested mountains. Their mission was to arrest two Salafist jihadis accused of an attempted assassination of a Serbian politician in Mitrovica and seize any weapons in their possession. A confidential informant reported he knew of their location and the possible existence of a weapons cache at the top of this particular mountain. Both jihadis had violent criminal records and had only recently converted to the religion of peace.

Though it was little more than a routine arrest, the lieutenant knew it was an urgent mission; hence the sudden reassignment of duties. Armed attacks on Christian Serb and secular Muslim politicians by the radical jihadis had increased exponentially in the last several weeks. The result was an escalating number of deaths and subsequent revenge murders.

According to Bonucci’s commander, finding these two jihadi criminals and bringing them to justice was key to preventing an all-out civil war in Kosovo, and Bonucci had been tasked with doing so. Each of Bonucci’s military policemen carried M4 carbines and the abomination of a pistol known as the Glock 17 instead of the unit’s retired Beretta 92FS semi-autos—works of art in steel.

“Check your photos,” Bonucci told his men. Attached to each man’s forearm was a photo sleeve with pictures of the two Salafists wanted for arrest, Amir Muriqi and Ibrahim Hajrizi. Both in their late twenties, they were former members of the Albanian mafia who were radicalized in the same mosque, one of eight hundred in tiny Kosovo. Both Salafists wore the characteristically long beards without mustaches favored by many of the traditionalist Muslims in the region, but had the look of violence in their eyes.

Drenched in sweat from the steep climb, he raised his hand and signaled a stop with a clenched fist. According to his GPS, this was the location where the confidential informant had requested for a meeting. From this point, the informant would lead them directly to the caves where the Salafist criminals were supposedly hiding.

Several meters back, Bonucci’s sergeant repeated the same command. The rest of the unit, marching uphill in a ragged triangle behind the sergeant, halted. They all stood on a steep, uneven slope surrounded by thick trees. Most were gasping for breath and sweating like their commanding officer. They weren’t used to the rugged terrain after so many months of city work.

“Tenente,” the sergeant said, jogging up. “I don’t have a good feeling about this place.”

“These are the coordinates. The men are tired. We’ll wait a few minutes to see if this guy shows up. Tell the men to take a water break.”

“And if this informant doesn’t show up?”

“We press on up the mountain and see what we can find. Besides, I suspect this might be a treasure hunt without a treasure. You know how it is with informants.” The young lieutenant clapped the burly sergeant on his broad shoulders.

The older noncom had served two tours in Iraq in the Italian Army before transferring to the carabinieri. His instincts told him they were in danger but, he reminded himself, his therapist said that his PTSD had made him paranoid and that he should not give in to it. Perhaps his lieutenant was correct.

The sergeant nodded. “A few minutes rest will do them good.”

The lieutenant smiled—just as the tree above his head exploded.

The 40mm grenade shattered the wood, throwing giant splinters like shrapnel as roaring M4 carbines hammered the air with 5.56mm jacketed rounds.

Bonucci screamed in agony as he crumbled to the ground, clutching his bloody face.

The sergeant grabbed the lieutenant’s collar with one hand as he fired blindly into the woods with his carbine in the other. He dragged Bonucci behind a gnarled pine for cover and propped himself against it for a firing platform. Supersonic rounds thudded into the other side of the trunk as he fired his weapon. He sensed more than saw that gunfire was erupting in a near-perfect circle around them.

The sergeant barked orders directing his men where to fire. Thirty meters away, his lance corporal hit the dirt with a scream, clutching a bloody arm, and a third man was cut down by a spray of gunfire that stitched across his legs. Their comrades bravely grabbed them up and hauled them out of harm’s way despite the rounds kicking up dirt all around them and the grenades smashing the trees above their heads. Shouts of “Allahu Akbar” echoed beyond the tree line.

“Retreat! Back to the vehicles!” the sergeant shouted. He ordered half the men to direct their fire downslope to clear a path toward the road. The sergeant and half a dozen others fought a rearguard action to slow the enemy’s advance, dragging their wounded comrades along with them.

Fifteen minutes and thirteen casualties later, the Italians reached the Ivecos and piled in after the wounded as the heavy machine guns in the trucks above them roared with covering fire.

The two Torpedoes slammed into reverse and gunned their engines in a wobbling retreat back down the road.

A camouflaged jihadi leaped out of the trees and fired an RPG at the lead vehicle. The streaking rocket exploded beneath it, flipping it over, but not destroying it.

The sergeant jumped out of the second Iveco and led the charge to rescue his comrades. He put a half dozen rounds into the chest of the jihadi before he could reload his RPG.

Now enraged, the surviving carabinieri charged back uphill, pouring withering gunfire into the trees. The machine gun from the second truck offered covering fire as they advanced. But it was to no avail.

The jihadis shouted for victory as they melted back up the mountain.