Kosovo authorities said the armed attack targeted a patrol as it approached a road blockade near the border with Serbia. "As soon as they arrived in the vicinity of the reported blockade, police units were attacked from different positions with various weapons, including hand grenades and shoulder-fired missiles," the Kosovo police said in a statement, according to AFP.
Kosovo leader Albin Kurti described the attack on police on Facebook as an act of terrorism. "The attackers were professionals, masked and heavily armed," Kurti wrote, according to Reuters.
"Organized crime with political , financial and logistical support from officials in Belgrade is attacking our territory," Kurti wrote.
There is no information yet on Serbia's reaction.
Tensions have been high in Kosovo since clashes in May, when more than 90 NATO peacekeepers and about 50 Serb protesters were injured in northern Kosovo.
NATO peacekeepers patrol the area near the border crossing between Kosovo and Serbia, in Jarinje (Kosovo).
Ethnic Albanians make up more than 90% of Kosovo's population, while Serbs are the majority in the northern part of Kosovo, where there are plans to create an association of Serb-majority municipalities.
EU-sponsored talks on normalizing relations between Kosovo and Serbia stalled last week, with EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell blaming Kurti for failing to form an association of Serb-majority municipalities to give them more autonomy, Reuters reported.
Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, but Belgrade has refused to recognize it. Kosovo still has a large Serb community of about 120,000 people, concentrated mainly in the north, according to AFP.
For more than 20 years, Kosovo has been a source of tension between the West (which supports Kosovo's independence) and Russia, which supports Serbia in its efforts to block Kosovo's membership in global organizations, including the United Nations, according to Reuters.
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