Talk:Battle of Košare

Result

Kumanovo treaty - NATO suspensions of air sorties aren`t results of the battle itself. It should be attack repelled / Yugoslav tactical victory

In the aftermath of the battle, Kumanovo Treaty and end of NATO operation Allied Force (end of Kosovo war) should be exaplained as end of hostilities in the zone, and retreat of Yugoslav army from its territory.

Rasvoja (talk) 22:48, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

Source

So the source is a Serbian propaganda movie that calls Albanians 'terrorists', says that the Mujahedin were fighting (did they see the Islamic flag flying???), the Albanian Army etc etc etc.?

Sorry Serbs, your credibility is not that great in this department. I'm putting a reliability questioned tag here. It's just a bit too convenient

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Keep it Fake (talk • contribs) 04:51, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Find another source about Battle of Košare if you can. Until you find it, article should stay like it was. By the way, Drecun is not a politican. He is a war reporter and he was at Košare at that time. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Damjanoviczarko (talk • contribs) 01:52, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, Drecun was working... for Slobo. And he was immediately banned from TV after the Butcher of the Balkans was deposed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.52.216.113 (talk • contribs) 01:30, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

In response to Damjanoviczarko's response "Find another source about Battle of Košare if you can. Until you find it, article should stay like it was", please see Wiki's policy on verifiability, in particular WP:v#Burden of evidence: "The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material. All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged should be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation." Since content of the article has been challenged and the reliability of the one and only source is in question, it is in line Wiki's policy to remove the contentious material until it is adequately sourced. If you can find reputable sources to back it up then by all means restore it, but until then policy dictates that it must remain deleted. -- Timberframe (talk) 17:49, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Battle was real, since Albania was used for training ground for KLA and NATO support during conflict. It was a point of entry to Yugoslav terittory and was expected area of conflict during whole "Kosovo war". In terms that it was a try to establish a control of Yugoslav-Albanian border and secure a support of KLA from Albania, as well as to provide safe area for further expansion of KLA troops from Albania, its also a stopped offensive Yugoslav victory. Not much in "already lost war with NATO" but fair enough.

Washington Post on wider NATO/KLA operation - where this battle is a direct result http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/balkans/stories/military060299.htm

See pages 88 and 89 http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monograph_reports/2001/MR1351.pdf

On eastablishing NATO helicopter / artillery support for operation of border entry from direction of Albania Pages 502 onward. Interesting read, its Albanian-Kosovo border, and then in next line "Serbian air defence (over border) was on their own ground" :-) https://books.google.rs/books?id=MQXvyD-_GW4C&pg=PA493&lpg=PA493&dq=Operation+Victory+Hawk&source=bl&ots=zNUOUU0mFw&sig=NdIfReY2tsx-csjjQ3uqQKGkWDI&hl=sr&sa=X&ei=PjsXVaz2EYLfaoTggsAH&ved=0CB8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Operation%20Victory%20Hawk&f=false

British guardian, while being surely pro NATO and KLA biased:

Yugoslav army shelling Kosare (after originaly taken in first wave of KLA attack) (propaganda part is high morale etc.) http://www.theguardian.com/world/1999/may/11/balkans4

NATO admits bombing KLA positions at Kosare http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/allied_force-damage.htm http://www.theguardian.com/world/1999/may/23/theobserver6 http://www.theguardian.com/world/1999/may/24/balkans3

Guardian admits Kosare attack was a complete failure, finding another village that was a KLA point of penetration from Albania http://www.theguardian.com/world/1999/jul/17/balkans

Note for Allied Force: that it was de facto invasion from Albania to Yugoslavia, even war was never declared and broke every existing UN convention as well as NATO charter as defensive alliance and German constitution (forbidding use of German armed forces outside Germany).

About those claiming it to be pro Serbian propaganda (movie is not just Milosevic time propaganda, it features real commanders and soldiers included, at least in Serbian army documentary 30 minutes released 2014 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByXRYUrrYLM ) Its sad that 16 years after operation Allied Force NATO gives no credibile history (operations, losses, collateral damages ...) of its "liberation campaign". Expect the same for other NATO operations, since then, now and in the future. So we have to dig some 16 years war propaganda to prove something has happened. Rasvoja (talk) 23:49, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

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NATO collusion

I have removed two mentions of NATO which portray them as co-combatants supporting the Albanian offensive from the outset. Neither is supported by references or contemporary reports of NATO policy decisions. This looks like POV. -- Timberframe (talk) 11:06, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

NATO Air Force participated in the Battle of Košare. It is a fact. I do not know exactly whose airplanes droped cluster bombs on the Serbian positions. If you have read the article, you will see that one frenchmen and one italian died in the battle. French Foreign Legion officers coordinated artilery fire... NATO participated. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.148.115.139 (talk) 12:12, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

I respect your opinion that it is a fact, but we need to see some reliable verification. I don't question whether NATO was involved in aerial bombing in Kosovo at various points in the warfare, but I question whether it was co-ordinated with Albanian military participation in the Battle of Košare as other contributors to this article claim. For example, it's equally possible that Albanians took advantage of the NATO bombardment to launch an offensive. In the absence of references to verifiable sources it's equally possible, as far as Wiki is concerned, that the Battle of Košare never took place or, if it did, NATO were nowhere to be seen. Please, back up your claims with reliable references or be prepared for them to be removed. -- Timberframe (talk) 19:36, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Entire article is based on one source (movie about battle of košare)... From this source you can see that NATO participated and that their actions were coordinated with KLA and Albanian Army. If you have other sources that says that nato did not participated please provide them.Template:Susbt:unsigned

A movie doesn't come close to being a veriable source. Please name the movie and provide a link to a transcript of it so that the article can be verified. Even then, if the the movie is fictional or partisan it will still not meet Wiki's standards. If it's true that NATO colluded with Albanian forces in this battle then there will be reputable documentary sources to back up your claim; please find them and cite them. The onus is on you to provide evidence to support the claims you insert in the articles, not on others to justify removing unsupported claims.
Also, please do not reinstate the images which have been removed because of copyright concerns without addressing those concerns first.
Both of these issues are summarised by the statement below the edit box: "Content that violates any copyright will be deleted. Encyclopedic content must be verifiable." These are the fundamental tests which your edits must pass, please follow the links to the Wiki policies and familiarise yourself with them. -- Timberframe (talk) 12:23, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

It is a Documentary film. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2697219212819574923 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.148.114.88 (talk • contribs) 01:43, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Two problems - one the documentary is not in English (it looks like Serbian to me but, forgive me, my knowledge of Serbian is elementary). Since this is the English Wikipedia it is reasonable to assume that the majority of its readers (as opposed to its editors) will have English as a primary language and few will be sufficiently fluent in the language of the documentary to be able to follow it. Thus for the vast majority of en.wiki readers the one and only source for the article remains inaccessible. That's why I suggested that you find and cite a published transcript of the documentary (in English) - that could form the basis of a suitable reference.

Secondly, there's the question of whether this documentary is itself a reliable source. Another editor has questioned this already it here at Talk:Battle of Košare#Source. If the documentary portrays the history accurately then I'm sure that there must be other independent reporters who can corroborate it. Have a look at WP:V, in particular WP:V#Reliable sources for guidelines on what makes a suitable source for verification, for example "Articles should rely on reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy" - in my opinion this documentary on its own falls short of Wiki's standard. Without corroboration in respected sources the documentary looks like a personal point of view which makes it unsuitable. -- Timberframe (talk) 17:39, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Ok. Then it is better for you to delete entire article. Why you have problem only with NATO participation. It is obvious from the article that NATO participated in the battle. Delete entire article then. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.148.112.149 (talk • contribs) 23:53, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Very well, I'll do that and see if anyone else come's to the atyicle's defence with credible references. -- Timberframe (talk) 18:43, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Mujahedin

According to some sources there was also a Balrog and a Rancor there —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.229.105.15 (talk) 22:23, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Serbian decisive victory?

Well, it seems like it wasn’t exactly this way. And, if the Serbian victory were “decisive”, why the region of Kosare is today in the Republic of Kosovo?--201.52.86.117 (talk) 19:05, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

1.Your "article" doesn't speak ANYTHING about the actual battle, it just says that Serbs are fighting with artillery and thousands of Albanians are joining the KLA.

2. Your second statement is proof of your idiocy because we won the war on the ground, NATO forced us to leave Kosovo

3. Serbian Decisive Victory, we attacked you at Rasa Koshares, we stabilized your sections and inflicted heavy losses on you all. The reason why you took Karaula Kosare was because of NATO, but did this include NATO as a belligerent, no, but it did on the Srpski article and it said that we won that battle decisively. It was no Strategic Victory for you, it was for us because you insurgents were disbanded, but not us until 2003 when we changed into Serbia & Montenegro. Also, we sent T-55s to take on for Rasa Koshares and Mrcaj which the tanks in Rasa Koshares took more than like 100 meters over your held territory which soon became a part of our territory. We even broke your resistance and your team failed to break ours because we had like about a hundred or something troops on each section and you had some hundred and something insurgents, but we had more which outnumbered you all and defeated you in the battle, so we used artillery and reserve soldiers that defeated you. So thats how we decisively won. End of story. Oh and Nebojsa Pavkovic had even admitted we won. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.102.153.253 (talk) 01:08, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

THE FACT OF THE MATTER IS THE OFFENSIVE INTO KOSARE WAS STOPPED (WITH MORE ALBANIAN CASUALTIES I MIGHT ADD). And tell me this, in what way was it a KLA victory? Their goals were NOT achieved, they lost a significant number of troops, and most importantly, the offensive was repulsed. As the article the states, the KLA were INITIALLY successful but in the course of the battle (and Serbian counterattack) they were PUSHED BACK and the offensive was defeated and repulsed.

• • • if nothing else, it does show that KLA was using kids as fighters which is against the UNICEF policies. Additionally, not all of the KLA fighters had proper uniforms.

Of course, if such kid-fighters get killed, then it was convenient to picture it as VJ atrocity against the kids (or in case of adult fighters without uniforms, as atrocity against civilian population) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.178.88.141 (talk) 08:50, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

enver: i change the victory of the serbs in victory of the kla and its THE TRUTH!!!SEE ALL INFOS ON CNN ETC...! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.72.102.158 (talk) 22:30, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

...and I reverted your change because you didn't cite any specific references to support it, and that is how Wikipedia works. If you can offer links to specific CNN reports which support your edit then please try again, this article desperately needs references to independant reliable sources. -- Timberframe (talk) 23:52, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Due to examples like this I find all articles about serbian history unreliable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 161.53.181.119 (talk) 17:10, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

You keep claiming that the KLA had heavy artillery operated by the French Legion but the KLA had only two batteries in koshare and those were operated by Kosovar soldiers. The heavy artillery is just an excuse. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 158.39.187.162 (talk) 19:30, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

The whole article is pure propaganda! Hundreds of Russian volunteers? Are you kidding? In total there were 7 Russians.Serbs had 20 tanks? Fourth day of the offensive came two tanks. Albanian regular army is operated with howitzers and mortars. Serbian victory, the offensive destroyed, hundreds of terrorists killed, Serbian army remained in their positions unitli peace agreement and the end of the war. Terrorists destroyed and returned to Albania,Apache helicopters was destroyed (NATO officially claims to have been destroyed in an accident 10 km away from Koshare), terrorists spoke English at Motorola? Yeah , it is terorist not SAS but Serbian army captured L85A2 assault rifle (UK official Army rifle).A textbook example of propaganda sources exclusively from one party to the conflict (BBC).NATO General Clark in his book claims to have had two SAS fighting groups on Koshare and that Serbs was destoyeed Albanians offensive and hi must try elsewhere(15 days later offensives on the mountain Pastrik). General Clark admits in his book that he had complete command of the ground offensive, satellite phones with Albanians, SAS Fighting Group, Apache helicopters, and that they failed to pass the line of Serbian Army. Goebbels could learn a lot from wiki propaganda — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.2.93.243 (talk) 08:38, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Dispute

This article is very one sided, written from the Serbian perspective, doesn't have any source for the claims and says that Albania was engaged at war (which I really doubt). Thank you. kedadial 18:54, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

How did we Serbs lose 450and the insurgents lost 180. Wow, thats not true, some Albanian Wiki editor replaced it. I can tell the Serbian Army crucified the insurgents with the T-55 tanks and with their artillery. Also, on the first phase, we gave them heavy losses, we did damage and destroy the artillery with the T-55s, of course NATO (Nazi Aggression Total Oversupremacy) bombed us just 4% because about 96% were in Belgrade, and it was controversial according to the UN. Also for our T-55s, we destroyed about 200 Insurgents and about a hundred more, that can be 480 or plus 300 more with our reserve troops and artillery we also brought, which counts as 780, close to the estimate of 800 casualties so the insurgents did unsuccessfully on completing their goal so deep down, we gave them the heavy casualties, both on Opijaz and Rasa Koshares. And whats the point of editing a file if your gonna freakin' change it back Wikipedia, takeoff the editing if your gonna place that false crap back. You don't know nothing, Serbs had less casualties up to 45 then, not 450, you kidding. I swear you are a terrible editor, your false! Serbia got less casualties because the KLA is weak!

If the KLA had a Tactical Victory, they would've completed their strategic goal, if they had a Decisive Victory, they would've killed almost all the Yugoslav Army troops, but the truth is, they have killed around 50 or 30 or 45 Yugoslav Troops. Just like the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, the NATO said they destroyed about 400 or 200 Armored Assault vehicles. But the truth is, that they destroyed only 22 or less vehicles. The Yugoslav had Volunteers from Russia, Greece, and I believe Yugoslav volunteers. NATO was involved, but had about six Aircraft (B-2 1, F-16 2, and AC-130 2), I believe the aircraft in the parenthesis are the ones that were used, but didn't inflict casualties, but for the F-16, I believe inflicted casualties 8. So Yugoslavia had less casualties than the KLA because regular troops are stronger than Militias or Guerrillas because they have better handling and training on weapons and hand to hand combat and have armored weapons and tanks and many more. The KLA only had guns. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.102.153.253 (talk) 16:55, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

It was like that, Serbs won the battle. And Albania was engaged coz this happened on the border with Albania, but Albania had a limited time for fighting and then had to pull back the army, those were the rules. Feeling better now? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Verbatimdat (talk • contribs) 19:52, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

I think that conclusion would be, that the battle was tactical victory for the Serbs, but strategically inconclusive. For a campaign that wasn't very clear for both sides, it would be fair enough to say that no ground-breaking strategic progress was made, on either side, particularly when you take into account fairly small size and scale of the conflict. Anyway, i don't think that point of such article is to provide someone with clear definition of the outcome of battle, as much as to as precisely as possible, sum up the events, belligerent forces, equipment and units. Until better information and sources appear, keep the ones already present for reference, rather tan deleting and changing article every now and then.

P.S. Wasn't at the side of Republic of Albania, only artillery involved ?

Albanian artillery only apparently. As for one sidedness of the article, well, reasoning is simple: Point of encyclopedia is to provide accurate information. The most accuarate are ones provided by Yugoslav sources, simply because Yugoslav forces were only ones in the conflict effectively tracking movements, order of battle, losses, positions, maneuvers, etc etc. So when you strip all that information from political content, you pretty much get this article.

Battle was fought until the end of war, hence the conclusion of battle is peace agreement itself. However, it was a strategic failure for KLA/NATO forces overall, because war goals were achieved elsewhere. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.155.15.2 (talk) 00:04, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Blanking

If anyone is interested in working on the article, you should know that User:Timberframe blanked it in January 2010. The article before the blanking is here. Nikola (talk) 10:03, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

To be more accurate, I removed layers of unreferenced POV, argument and tit-for-tat number-juggling. In doing so, I reduced it to a stub from which we could have another go at building the article properly, with each addition supported by verifiable references from reliable sources; sadly it seems nobody is interested in doing that or has suitable material with which to do it. -- Timberframe (talk) 13:54, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Blatant bias and unverifiable sources

It is clear that any articles pertaining to the wars in the Balkan Peninsula during the 1990s will be pervaded with scantly veiled prejudice and blatantly one-sided editing, but I've found this article to be especially bad.

The death counts are an obvious source of contention, yet they nevertheless lack any proper sources. In fact, the topic of sources within this article is one that needs to be seriously addressed. Every single reference that I have personally inspected for accuracy have not supported the claims made in Wikipedia article. Here are two examples:

"91 insurgents killed (KLA claim)[7]" Reference 7 points to this website: http://www.kosharja99.info/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6&Itemid=9 Opening the website reveals that there is no "KLA" death claim.

On the opposite side of that same section the table reads:

"Around 60 soldiers killed (Yugoslav claim)" And in this case, there is not even a reference at all!

The second example is the not-insignificant claim that two NATO A-10A Thunderbolt IIs were shot down during the operation by the Serbian forces:

"Two A-10 Thunderbolts shot down [9][not in citation given]" Reference 9 procures a military aircraft ejection history site and specifically a page listing all the (declassified) A-10A ejections. A quick inspection of the dates in question (spring of 1999) show that there were aircraft shot down, but only in the general vicinity of the battle (specifically above the major cities of Prishtina, Gjilan, and Skopje). None of the planes shot down within the context of the battle give any indication that they were related to the Battle of Kosare.

This article is riddled with inaccuracies obviously influenced by partisanship. This is made painfully clear by the lack of proper sources where they would be necessary and inaccurate ones where they are provided. Something needs to be done.