The Next Balkan War

Serb repression and Albanian nationalism fuel a revolt

It doesn't take much to start a war in the Balkans.

The shot that pierced the leg of Bahri Krasniqi, an 11-year-old ethnic Albanian who lives in the tiny village of Vojnik, may have been enough to set fire again to the depressingly familiar tinder of ethnic hate, violent temperament and political oppression.

The village lies 32 miles beyond the dusty downtown streets of Pristina, capital of the rebellious Serbian province of Kosovo, due west across the bleak Field of the Blackbirds. The Turks slaughtered Christian forces here in 1389 on their way to 500 years of rule in the...

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