UAE making scheduled departure
from Kosovo peacekeeping force
By Terry Boyd, Kosovo
bureau
UROSEVAC, Kosovo — The United Arab Emirates is leaving the 39-nation U.N.
peacekeeping force in Kosovo — a move that has been planned since last month and is
not related to the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States or the expected retaliation by
allied forces against Muslim terrorists.
Peacekeeping simply is too taxing on the country’s small army, according to Lt.
Col. Sultan al-Dhaheri, commander at the UAE’s headquarters at Camp Bondsteel.
Plans for the exit from KFOR by this federation of seven small Muslim sheikdoms in the
Persian Gulf have been in place since August, according to al-Dhaheri, although he
acknowledged "that everyone thinks that we’re leaving because of [the
attacks]."
On Friday, soldiers and local workers were busy tearing down and packing up the
UAE’s small headquarters at Camp Bondsteel, the main U.S. base in Kosovo.
Two companies — an Apache helicopter unit and a special forces group — were
scheduled to leave Bondsteel this weekend, al-Dhaheri said. So far, he said, he was only
aware of the two units and the Bondsteel headquarters group leaving, although he said it
was possible that the UAE will withdraw from KFOR completely.
According to KFOR officials, the UAE will be withdrawing completely. The full
873-soldier contingent is scheduled to leave by Nov. 1, said RAF Squadron Leader Darren
Slaven, spokesman at KFOR headquarters in Pristina.
"They made a significant contribution here," Slaven said.
Based in Vucitrn in central Kosovo, the UAE troops had been working with French and
Belgian troops in northeast Kosovo, Slaven said.
The UAE has been supporting KFOR since October 1999, and many of its army units have
rotated into Kosovo three or four times, al-Dhaheri said.
"I myself have been here two times," he said.
The UAE’s departure is not the first, according to KFOR officials. Portugal pulled
out its troops last year, and the only Dutch presence is at KFOR headquarters in Pristina.
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