Karan: I believe foreign intelligence services are behind gas pipeline sabotage attempt near Kanjiza

Photo: Tanjug/OMK MUP Serbia

Retired Counterintelligence Service Lt. Col. Ljuban Karan said today that Serbia's security services carried out a very successful operation by preventing an attempt to sabotage the gas pipeline near the town of Kanjiza in the north of the country, where explosives and the tools to activate them were discovered, and assessed that a secret operation staged by foreign intelligence services was behind the incident.

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Speaking about the fact that two large packages of explosives were found on Sunday not far from the part of the Turkish Stream gas pipeline that connects Serbia and Hungary, Karan told Tanjug that everything that has been disclosed regarding the event shows that there is continuity of operational work by the security services, as well as excellent communication between our services and international ones, which is always very important when it comes to combatting terrorism.

"When it comes to their good work, for a long time the services have had information that some kind of attack or terrorist act is being planned against that gas infrastructure, and the services warned the state authorities in this regard, but that information is not always at a level that is convincing enough to take measures. The services also encountered problems with misinformation that aimed to divert the attention elsewhere from those facilities, but in the end it was all taken seriously," he explained.

Karan pointed out that it is very good that the president of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, ordered the Army to protect the most important energy system facilities, as well as the fact that protective measures were put in place in time, which is why this can be considered a very successful operation by the security services and good decisions made by the state leadership.

Asked how many people have to be involved in such a sabotage attempt and whether there are indications that it is an organized group or an isolated incident, Karan said that such a complex and dangerous act is never planned by an individual, because it requires strong intelligence logistics, to know the location of targets and what can be targeted.

An individual can hardly have such a strong motive to decide to do something like this, Karan said and assessed that this attempt was either carried out by a terrorist group or foreign intelligence services.

"If a country or its intelligence services were behind it, then they would take every measure so that it would never come out. That's why this migrant was hired that makes it impossible to conclude for which service or country he may have worked," Karan said.

Asked what the priorities of the security services are after this event, Karan said that they are now trying to determine who the perpetrator is, and who ordered or planned a terrorist act of this kind.

According to him, the perpetrators themselves could now be killed by those who ordered that terrorist act, in order to cut the thread that leads to those who would be terribly compromised if it were to come out they were behind all of this.

"I think that now our services are investing most of their focus on identifying and finding the perpetrators as soon as possible. I think that would be a salvation for those perpetrators, because they are in greater danger while out at large, since they will be 'removed' by those who turned them into terrorists," said Karan.

(Telegraf.rs/Tanjug)