US monitoring large Serbian force along Kosovo border

The United States is
monitoring a troubling Serbian military deployment along the
border of Kosovo that is destabilizing the area, the White House
said on Friday and called for the forces to be withdrawn.
White House national security spokesperson John Kirby told
reporters that Kosovo’s peacekeeping force is going to be
increasing its presence of NATO forces in northern Kosovo as a
result of the tensions.
Kosovo authorities said police fought around 30 heavily
armed Serbs who stormed the Kosovo village of Banjska on Sunday
and barricaded themselves in a Serbian Orthodox monastery. Three
attackers and one police officer were killed.
The gunbattle has prompted new international concern over
stability in Kosovo, which has an ethnic Albanian majority and
declared independence from Serbia in 2008 after a guerrilla
uprising and a 1999 NATO intervention.
Kirby said the attack was not a random one and that the
amount of types of arms that were found represent a threat not
only to Kosovo personnel but international personnel, including
NATO troops.