BULARAT, Albania: Hundreds attended a funeral in southern Albania on Thursday for an ethnic Greek man who was killed by police there last month, inflaming tensions between Athens and Tirana.
Konstantinos Katsifas, who had dual Greek and Albanian citizenship, was killed during a shootout with police in the town of Bularat on October 28.
Albanian authorities described the 35-year-old as a Greek “extremist” who had fired a Kalashnikov into the air in the center of the village, nearby where a ceremony was being held to commemorate Greek soldiers who fought in World War II.
A 30-minute shootout ensued after police tried to apprehend him.
Athens said the loss of life was “unacceptable” and requested a full investigation, while some Greek nationalist groups have protested against the killing, firebombing an Albanian tourism office in Athens.
On Thursday hundreds of mourners carrying white-and-blue Greek flags flocked by bus and car, some traveling from Greece, to Bularat.
Katsifas was carried in an open casket draped with Greek flags as some mourners chanted “Konstantinos, you are alive and leading us!”
A police source told AFP that 10 Greek nationalists were arrested at the border and banned from entering Albania to attend the funeral.
The treatment of Albania’s ethnic Greeks has long strained bilateral relations.
The size of the ethnic Greek minority in Albania is disputed, though a 2011 census put it at 25,000, in an overall population of 2.8 million. They are concentrated in the south.
Some 600,000 Albanians have also emigrated to Greece since the fall of communism almost 30 years ago.
The neighbors have a number of other long-running disputes, including a disagreement over their maritime border, which is believed to straddle lucrative energy resources.
In an illustration of their complex relations, the countries have yet to officially lift the state of war declared in 1940, though both sides have indicated an intention to do so.
Crowds flock to funeral of ethnic Greek man slain in Albania
Crowds flock to funeral of ethnic Greek man slain in Albania
- The size of the ethnic Greek minority in Albania is believed to be around 25,000, in an overall population of 2.8 million
- The neighbors have a number of other long-running disputes, including a disagreement over their maritime border, which is believed to straddle lucrative energy resources
Nigeria signals more strikes likely in ‘joint’ US operations
- Nigeria on Friday signalled more strikes against jihadist groups were expected after a Christmas Day bombardment by US forces against militants in the north of the country
LAGOS: Nigeria on Friday signalled more strikes against jihadist groups were expected after a Christmas Day bombardment by US forces against militants in the north of the country.
The west African country faces multiple interlinked security crises in its north, where jihadists have been waging an insurgency in the northeast since 2009 and armed “bandit” gangs raid villages and stage kidnappings in the northwest.
The US strikes come after Abuja and Washington were locked in a diplomatic dispute over what Trump characterised as the mass killing of Christians amid Nigeria’s myriad armed conflicts.
Washington’s framing of the violence as amounting to Christian “persecution” is rejected by the Nigerian government and independent analysts, but has nonetheless resulted in increased security coordination.
“It’s Nigeria that provided the intelligence,” the country’s foreign minister, Yusuf Tuggar, told broadcaster Channels TV, saying he was on the phone with US State Secretary Marco Rubio ahead of the bombardment.
Asked if there would be more strikes, Tuggar said: “It is an ongoing thing, and we are working with the US. We are working with other countries as well.”
Targets unclear
The Department of Defense’s US Africa Command, using an acronym for the Daesh group, said “multiple Daesh terrorists” were killed in an attack in the northwestern state of Sokoto.
US defense officials later posted video of what appeared to be the nighttime launch of a missile from the deck of a battleship flying the US flag.
Which of Nigeria’s myriad armed groups were targeted remains unclear.
Nigeria’s jihadist groups are mostly concentrated in the northeast of the country, but have made inroads into the northwest.
Researchers have recently linked some members from an armed group known as Lakurawa — the main jihadist group located in Sokoto State — to Islamic State Sahel Province (ISSP), which is mostly active in neighboring Niger and Mali.
Other analysts have disputed those links, though research on Lakurawa is complicated as the term has been used to describe various armed fighters in the northwest.
Those described as Lakurawa also reportedly have links to Al-Qaeda affiliated group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM), a rival group to ISSP.
While Abuja has welcomed the strikes, “I think Trump would not have accepted a ‘No’ from Nigeria,” said Malik Samuel, an Abuja-based researcher for Good Governance Africa, an NGO.
Amid the diplomatic pressure, Nigerian authorities are keen to be seen as cooperating with the US, Samuel told AFP, even though “both the perpetrators and the victims in the northwest are overwhelmingly Muslim.”
Tuggar said that Nigerian President Bola Tinubu “gave the go-ahead” for the strikes.
The foreign minister added: “It must be made clear that it is a joint operation, and it is not targeting any religion nor simply in the name of one religion or the other.”
