Notwithstanding its 80 percent Albanian Muslim population, Kosovo has mostly kept infiltration by ISIS or other Islamist radicals at bay. Hashim Thaci, the former head of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), elected president by the country’s National Assembly on February 26, told the German newspaper Handelsblatt last November, “We have acted against radical elements by arresting almost 100 individuals, including imams who had influence. They are now waiting for the verdict of the court.”
Thaci represents a coalition between his Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK), mainly led by KLA veterans, and the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK), which organized for Kosovar rights under Serbia on a nonviolent platform, before the 1999 NATO-led air intervention in the territory. LDK chief Isa Mustafa serves as prime minister, a post in which Thaci preceded him.
