Militant Serbs erect barricade in divided city of Mitrovica in Kosovo

Serb militants erected a barricade in the north of the divided city of Mitrovica in Kosovo, using trucks loaded with rocks and sand to block access to a Bosnian quarter in the early hours of Tuesday, the kossev.info news portal reported.
Amid rising tensions between Serbs and Bosniaks in Kosovo, Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić ordered the country's armed forces placed on high alert once more late on Monday.
Kosovo, which was once part of Serbia, but whose population is currently almost exclusively Albanian, has been independent since 2008. Serbia has not recognized this and continues to lay claim to the territory.
The area around the northern city of Mitrovica has a predominantly Serb population and borders Serbia, but there are also Albanians and Bosniaks living in the region.
For the past 18 days, militant Serbs in the villages to the north of the city have been blocking roads leading to the border crossings to Serbia, protesting the arrest of a former officer in the Kosovan police.
The Kosovan authorities accuse the officer, who is of Serb ethnicity, of attacks on officials from the country's electoral commission.
The government in Belgrade supports the militant Serbs in northern Kosovo, many of whose members are recruited from criminal and intelligence backgrounds.
Vučić has repeatedly utilized these informal structures to stoke tensions in Kosovo, placing the Serbian military on alert six times over the past five years. The NATO-led KFOR mission has ensured peace in Kosovo since 1999.