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Insurgency in Kosovo (1995–1998)

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Insurgency in Kosovo
Part of the Yugoslav Wars and the prelude to the Kosovo War

Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija, otherwise known to the Albanian population as Republic of Kosova, highlighted in red as part of FR Yugoslavia (1945-1999).
Date27 May 1995 – 27 February 1998
(2 years and 9 months)
Location
Kosovo and Metohija, Serbia, Yugoslavia
Result

Tactical KLA victory[1]

  • Start of the Kosovo War
  • Many Yugoslav buildings destroyed
Belligerents
Kosovo Liberation Army  FR Yugoslavia
 • Serbia Police of Serbia
Commanders and leaders
Adem Jashari
Hamëz Jashari
Hashim Thaçi
Sylejman Selimi
Zahir Pajaziti †		 Serbia and Montenegro Slobodan Milošević
Serbia and MontenegroSerbia Vlastimir Đorđević
Serbia and MontenegroSerbia Sreten Lukić
Strength
c. 150 (before 1997)[2]
c. 300 (before 1998)[3]
c. 500 (early 1998)[4]		 Serbia c. 10,000 policemen[5]
Serbia and Montenegro 11–12,000 soldiers (early 1998)[6]
Casualties and losses
Unknown Serbia and Montenegro 121 policemen killed[7]
1 Air transport shot down
24 civilians killed (Serbian claim)

The Insurgency in Kosovo began in 1995, following the Dayton Agreement that ended the Bosnian War. In 1996, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) began attacking Serbian governmental buildings and police stations. This insurgency would lead to the more intense Kosovo War in February 1998.[8][9][10]

Background

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See also: 1981 protests in Kosovo and Anti-bureaucratic revolution

The Albanian-Serbian conflict has its roots in the expulsion of the Albanians in 1877–1878 from areas that became incorporated into the Principality of Serbia.[11][12] Animosity between these feuding factions remains strong to this day. The 1950s and 1960s were a period marked by repression and anti Albanian policies in Kosovo under Aleksandar Ranković, a Serbian communist who later fell out and was dismissed by Tito.[13][14] During this time nationalism for Kosovar Albanians became a conduit to alleviate the conditions of the time.[13] In 1968 Yugoslav Serb officials warned about rising Albanian nationalism and by November unrest and demonstrations by thousands of Albanians followed calling for Kosovo to attain republic status, an independent Albanian language university and some for unification with Albania.[15][16] Tito rewrote the Yugoslav constitution (1974) and tried to address Albanian complaints by awarding the province of Kosovo autonomy and powers such as a veto in the federal decision making process similar to that of the republics.[13][17] Kosovo functioned as a de facto republic because Kosovar Albanians attained the ability to pursue near independent foreign relations, trade and cultural links with Albania, an independent Albanian language university and Albanology institute, an Academy of Sciences and Writers association with the ability to fly the Albanian flag.[17] These powers were revoked by Milosevic in 1989.[18][19] In addition, Milosevic ordered the abolishment of the Academy of Sciences in Kosovo, Albanian street names were changed to Serbian ones, Serbs were allowed to enter the University of Pristina, Serbs received preferential treatment, and Albanians were fired from their posts or lost their homes to Serbs (130,000 between 1990-1995).[20]

Military precursors to the KLA began in the late 1980s with armed resistance to Serb police trying to take Albanian activists in custody.[21] Prior to the KLA, its members had been part of organizations such as the National Kosovo Movement and Popular Movement for Kosovo Liberation.[22] The founders of the later KLA were involved in the 1981 protests in Kosovo. Many ethnic Albanian dissidents were arrested or moved to European countries, where they continued subversive activities. Repression of Albanian nationalism and Albanian nationalists by authorities in Belgrade strengthened the independence movement and focused international attention toward the plight of Kosovar Albanians.[23][24]

From 1991 to 1992, Adem Jashari and about 100 other ethnic Albanians wishing to fight for the independence of Kosovo underwent military training in the municipality of Labinot-Mal in Albania.[25] Afterwards, Jashari and other ethnic Albanians committed several acts of sabotage aimed at the Serbian administrative apparatus in Kosovo. Attempting to capture or kill him, Serbian police surrounded Jashari and his older brother, Hamëz, at their home in Prekaz on 30 December 1991. In the ensuing siege, large numbers of Kosovo Albanians flocked to Prekaz, forcing the Serbs to withdraw from the village.[26]

While in Albania, Jashari was arrested in 1993 by the government of Sali Berisha and sent to jail in Tirana[27] before being released alongside other Kosovo Albanian militants at the demand of the Albanian Army.[28] Jashari launched several attacks over the next several years, targeting the Yugoslav Army (VJ) and Serbian police in Kosovo.[26] In the spring of 1993, "Homeland Calls" meetings were held in Aarau, Switzerland, organized by Xhavit Haliti, Azem Syla, Jashar Salihu and others.[29]

KLA strategist Xhavit Halili said that in 1993, the KLA 'considered and then rejected the IRA, PLO and ETA models'.[30] Some journalists claim that a May 1993 attack in Glogovac that left five Serbian policemen dead and two wounded was the first one carried out by the KLA.[31]

History

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1995

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By the early 1990s, there were attacks on Serbian police forces, and secret-service officials in retaliation for abuse and murder of Albanian civilians.[21] A Serbian policeman was murdered in 1995, allegedly by the KLA.[32] Since 1995, the KLA sought to destabilize the region, hoping the United States and NATO would intervene.[33] Serbian patrols were ambushed and policemen were murdered.[33] It was only in the next year that the organization of KLA took responsibility for attacks.[32]

1996–1997

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The KLA, originally composed of a few hundred Albanians, attacked several police stations and wounded many police officers in 1996–1997.[34]

In 1996 the British weekly The European carried an article by a French expert stating that "German civil and military intelligence services have been involved in training and equipping the rebels with the aim of cementing German influence in the Balkan area. (...) The birth of the KLA in 1996 coincided with the appointment of Hansjoerg Geiger as the new head of the BND (German secret Service). (...) The BND men were in charge of selecting recruits for the KLA command structure from the 500,000 Kosovars in Albania."[35] Former senior adviser to the German parliament Matthias Küntzel tried to prove later on that German secret diplomacy had been instrumental in helping the KLA since its creation.[36]

Cemetery of Albanians killed by Serbs during the Kosovo war in Gjakova

KLA representatives met with American, British, and Swiss intelligence agencies in 1996,[33][37] and possibly "several years earlier"[37] and according to The Sunday Times, "American intelligence agents have admitted they helped to train the Kosovo Liberation Army before NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia".[38] Intelligence agents denied, however, that they were involved in arming the KLA.

In February 1996 the KLA undertook a series of attacks against police stations and Yugoslav government employees, saying that the Yugoslav authorities had killed Albanian civilians as part of an ethnic cleansing campaign.[39] Serbian authorities denounced the KLA as a terrorist organization and increased the number of security forces in the region. This had the counter-productive effect of boosting the credibility of the embryonic KLA among the Kosovo Albanian population. On 22 April 1996, four attacks on Serbian security personnel were carried out almost simultaneously in several parts of Kosovo.

In January 1997, Serbian security forces assassinated KLA commander Zahir Pajaziti and two other leaders in a highway attack between Pristina and Mitrovica, and arrested more than 100 Albanian militants.[40]

Jashari, as one of the originators and leaders of the KLA, was convicted of terrorism in absentia by a Yugoslav court on 11 July 1997. Human Rights Watch subsequently described the trial, in which fourteen other Kosovo Albanians were also convicted, as "[failing] to conform to international standards."[41]

The 1997 civil unrest in Albania enabled the KLA to acquire large amounts of weapons looted from Albanian armories.[42] A 1997 intelligence report stated that the KLA received drug trafficking proceeds, used to purchase arms.[43] The KLA received large funds from Albanian diaspora organizations. There is a possibility that among donators to the KLA were people involved in illegal activities such as drug trafficking, however insufficient evidence exists that the KLA itself was involved in such activities.[44][45][46]

On 25 November 1997, the Yugoslav police and army were supposed to conduct a raid on the village of Rezalla but were ambushed by KLA forces led by Adem Jashari which had previously hid in the woods. After retreating, Yugoslav forces reorganized and started crossing the Skenderaj-Klina road whilst helicopter scanned ahead. Adem Jashari gathered 22 KLA insurgents and waited in the narrow pass surrounding the road. When the Yugoslav vehicles came, the KLA insurgents fired at them killing many and damaging Yugoslav artillery and vehicles. Due to this, Yugoslav forces retreated to the village of Llausha where they shot 2 Albanian teachers who worked in the primary school of the village.[47]

On 28 November, after the battle ended, the KLA made their first public appearance at the funeral of one of the teachers killed by Serbian forces, giving a speech surrounded by a crowd consisting of hundreds of ethnic Albanian civilians.[48]

On December 1, 1997, the KLA shot down a Yugoslav air transport near Pristina.[49]

1998

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Months before the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, the North Atlantic Council said that the KLA was "the main initiator of the violence" and that it had "launched what appears to be a deliberate campaign of provocation".[50][51]

James Bissett, former Canadian Ambassador to Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Albania, wrote in 2001 that media reports indicate that "as early as 1998, the Central Intelligence Agency assisted by the British Special Air Service were arming and training Kosovo Liberation Army members in Albania to foment armed rebellion in Kosovo" with the hope that "NATO could intervene (...)".[52]

Pursuing Adem Jashari for the murder of a Serb policeman, the Serbian forces again attempted to assault the Jashari compound in Prekaz on 22 January 1998.[53] With Jashari not present, thousands of Kosovo Albanians descended on Prekaz and again succeeded in pushing the Serbian forces out of the village and its surroundings. The next month, a small unit of the KLA was ambushed by Serb policemen. Four Serbs were killed and two were injured in the ensuing clashes. At dawn on 5 March 1998, according to the Serbian public report, the KLA launched an attack against a police patrol in Prekaz,[26] which was then answered by a police operation on the Jashari compound which left 58 Albanians dead, including Jashari and the majority of his family members.[54] Four days after this, a NATO meeting was convoked, during which Madeleine Albright pushed for an anti-Serbian response.[33] NATO now threatened Serbia with a military response.[33] The Kosovo War ensued, with subsequent NATO intervention, which started after the Racak massacre was uncovered during the course of the war.

Attacks

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Between 1991 and 1997, mostly in 1996–97, 39 people were killed by the KLA.[55] Serbian officials reported that attacks between 1996 and February of 1998 led to the deaths of 10 policemen and 24 civilians.[32]

The KLA launched 31 attacks in 1996, 55 in 1997, and 66 in January and February 1998.[56] After the KLA killed four policemen in early March 1998, special Serbian police units retaliated and attacked three villages in Drenica.[56] The total number of attacks by the KLA in 1998 was 1,470, compared to 66 the year before.[56] After the attacks against the Yugoslav police intensified in 1998, security increased as did the presence of Yugoslav Army personnel,[57] which led to the Kosovo War.

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Bono, Giovanna (2017). NATO's Peace Enforcement Tasks and Policy Communities. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9781351776493. In February 1998, the success of the KLA in undertaking guerilla activities and the nature of the Serbian responses to them led to the official beginning of the war.
  2. ^ Cabestan, Jean-Pierre; Pavkovic, A., eds. (2013). Secessionism and Separatism in Europe and Asia: To Have a State of One’s Own. Taylor & Francis. p. 85. ISBN 9781136205866.
  3. ^ Thomas, Nigel; Mikulan, K. (2006). The Yugoslav Wars (2): Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia 1992–2001. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 9781472801968.
  4. ^ Piehler, G. Kurt, ed. (2013). Encyclopedia of Military Science. SAGE Publications. p. 754. ISBN 9781506310817.
  5. ^ "Kosovo Conflict Chronology: September 1998-March 1999". Congressional Research Service. p. 4. State Department officials later said that about 4,000 Serbian special police forces had withdrawn from Kosovo, leaving about 10,000 special police, roughly the same amount that was in the province before February 1998.
  6. ^ Stanar, Dragan; Tonn, Kristina, eds. (2022). The Ethics of Urban Warfare: City and War. Brill. p. 73. ISBN 9789004522404.
  7. ^ Petersen, Roger D. (2011-09-30). Western Intervention in the Balkans: The Strategic Use of Emotion in Conflict. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-139-50330-3. By February, KLA members were regularly attacking policemen in Drenica; numbers killed in January and February totaled 66, as opposed to 55 in all of 1997.
  8. ^ Independent International Commission on Kosovo (2000). The Kosovo Report (PDF). Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 2. ISBN 978-0199243099. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2022-04-11. Retrieved 2020-08-10.
  9. ^ Quackenbush, Stephen L. (2015). International Conflict: Logic and Evidence. Los Angeles: Sage. p. 202. ISBN 9781452240985. Archived from the original on 2023-01-11. Retrieved 2020-09-24.
  10. ^ "Roots of the Insurgency in Kosovo" (PDF). June 1999. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2021-06-25. Retrieved 2020-08-08.
  11. ^ Frantz, Eva Anne (2009). "Violence and its Impact on Loyalty and Identity Formation in Late Ottoman Kosovo: Muslims and Christians in a Period of Reform and Transformation". Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs. 29 (4): 460–461. doi:10.1080/13602000903411366. S2CID 143499467.
  12. ^ Müller, Dietmar (2009). "Orientalism and Nation: Jews and Muslims as Alterity in Southeastern Europe in the Age of Nation-States, 1878–1941". East Central Europe. 36 (1): 70. doi:10.1163/187633009x411485.
  13. ^ a b c Henry H. Perritt. Kosovo Liberation Army: The Inside Story of an Insurgency. University of Illinois Press. pp. 21–22.
  14. ^ Dejan Jović (2009). Yugoslavia: A State that Withered Away. Purdue University Press. p. 117.
  15. ^ Jasna Dragovic-Soso (9 October 2002). Saviours of the Nation: Serbia's Intellectual Opposition and the Revival of Nationalism. MQUP. p. 40.
  16. ^ Miranda Vickers (28 January 2011). The Albanians: A Modern History. I.B.Tauris. p. 192.
  17. ^ a b Jasna Dragovic-Soso (9 October 2002). Saviours of the Nation: Serbia's Intellectual Opposition and the Revival of Nationalism. MQUP. p. 116.
  18. ^ "Autonomy Abolished: How Milosevic Launched Kosovo's Descent into War".
  19. ^ "The Revocation of the Kosovo Autonomy 1989 – 1991". Foundation Office Kosovo. 2023-12-04. Retrieved 2024-11-15.
  20. ^ Weymouth, Tony. The Kosovo Crisis: The Last American War in Europe?. United Kingdom: Reuters, 2001, p. 23
  21. ^ a b Henry H. Perritt (1 October 2010). Kosovo Liberation Army: The Inside Story of an Insurgency. University of Illinois Press. p. 62.
  22. ^ Shaul Shay (12 July 2017). Islamic Terror and the Balkans. Taylor & Francis. pp. 103–. ISBN 978-1-351-51138-4. Archived from the original on 11 January 2023. Retrieved 5 January 2018.
  23. ^ Susan Fink Yoshihara (13 May 2013). Flashpoints in the War on Terrorism. Routledge. pp. 67–69.
  24. ^ Minton F. Goldman (15 January 1997). Revolution and Change in Central and Eastern Europe: Political, Economic, and Social Challenges. M.E. Sharpe. pp. 307–308.
  25. ^ Judah 2002, p. 111.
  26. ^ a b c Bartrop 2012, p. 142.
  27. ^ Pettifer & Vickers 2007, p. 113.
  28. ^ Pettifer & Vickers 2007, pp. 98–99.
  29. ^ Perritt 2008, p. 94.
  30. ^ Perritt 2008, p. 145.
  31. ^ Moore 2013, p. 120.
  32. ^ a b c Professor Peter Radan; Dr Aleksandar Pavkovic (28 April 2013). The Ashgate Research Companion to Secession. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. pp. 178–. ISBN 978-1-4094-7652-8.
  33. ^ a b c d e Marsden 2000.
  34. ^ Kushner 2002, p. 206.
  35. ^ Fallgot, Roger (1998): "How Germany Backed KLA", in The European, 21 – 27 September. pp. 21–27
  36. ^ Küntzel, Matthias (2002): Der Weg in den Krieg. Deutschland, die Nato und das Kosovo (The Road to War. Germany, Nato and Kosovo). Elefanten Press. Berlin, Germany. pp. 59–64 ISBN 3885207710.
  37. ^ a b Judah 2002, p. 120.
  38. ^ Tom Walker; Aidan Laverty (12 March 2000). "CIA aided Kosovo guerrilla army". The Sunday Times. London.
  39. ^ "Unknown Albanian 'liberation army' claims attacks". Agence France Presse. 17 February 1996.
  40. ^ Perritt 2008, pp. 44, 56.
  41. ^ Human Rights Watch 1998, p. 27.
  42. ^ A. Pavkovic (8 January 2016). The Fragmentation of Yugoslavia: Nationalism and War in the Balkans. Springer. pp. 190–. ISBN 978-0-230-28584-2.
  43. ^ Nicholas Ridley; Nick Ridley (1 January 2012). Terrorist Financing: The Failure of Counter Measures. Edward Elgar Publishing. pp. 46–. ISBN 978-0-85793-946-3.
  44. ^ Henry H. Perritt (2010). Kosovo Liberation Army: The Inside Story of an Insurgency. University of Illinois Press. pp. 88–93.
  45. ^ "U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee". fas.org. Archived from the original on 2020-08-11. Retrieved 2020-08-08.
  46. ^ Policraticus (2019-01-29). ""Mafia State": Kosovo's PM Accused of Running Human Organ, Drug Trafficking Cartel". POLICRATICUS. Archived from the original on 2020-08-02. Retrieved 2020-08-08.
  47. ^ Geci, Rrustem (20 September 2016). "Liria perendesha e fitoreve". radiokosovaelire.com.
  48. ^ Qeriqi, Ahmet (17 February 2024). "Kosova një histori e shkurter deri ne pavarësi III". radiokosovaelire.com.
  49. ^ Peña, Charles V. (2006). Winning the Un-war: A New Strategy for the War on Terrorism. Potomac Books, Inc. ISBN 978-1-57488-965-9.
  50. ^ Allan, Stuart; Zelizer, Barbie (2004). Reporting war: journalism in wartime. Routledge. p. 178. ISBN 978-0-415-33998-8.
  51. ^ Hammond, Philip (2018-07-30). Framing post-Cold War conflicts: The media and international intervention. Manchester University Press. ISBN 978-1-5261-3091-4. Archived from the original on 2022-11-30. Retrieved 2022-11-30.
  52. ^ Bissett, James (31 July 2001) "WE CREATED A MONSTER". Archived from the original on May 10, 2008. Retrieved 2014-08-28.. Toronto Star
  53. ^ Elsie 2011, p. 142.
  54. ^ Judah 2002, p. 140.
  55. ^ James Ron (19 April 2003). Frontiers and Ghettos: State Violence in Serbia and Israel. University of California Press. pp. 98–. ISBN 978-0-520-93690-4.
  56. ^ a b c Carrie Booth Walling (1 July 2013). All Necessary Measures: The United Nations and Humanitarian Intervention. University of Pennsylvania Press. pp. 156–. ISBN 978-0-8122-0847-4.
  57. ^ Mincheva & Gurr 2013, pp. 27–28.

Sources

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Further reading

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  • Jana Arsovska (6 February 2015). Decoding Albanian Organized Crime: Culture, Politics, and Globalization. Univ of California Press. pp. 44–. ISBN 978-0-520-28280-3.
  • Stevanović, Obrad M. (2015). "Efekti albanskog terorizma na Kosovu i Metohiji". Zbornik Radova Filozofskog Fakulteta u Prištini. 45 (1): 143–166. doi:10.5937/zrffp45-7341.
  • Clément, Sophia. Conflict prevention in the Balkans: case studies of Kosovo and the FYR of Macedonia. Institute for Security Studies, Western European Union, 1997.
  • Kostovičová, Denisa. Parallel worlds: Response of Kosovo Albanians to loss of autonomy in Serbia, 1989–1996. Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, 1996.
  • Phillips, David L. "Comprehensive Peace in the Balkans: the Kosovo question." Human Rights Quarterly 18.4 (1996): 821–832.
  • Athanassopoulou, Ekavi. "Hoping for the best, Planning for the worst: Conflict in KOSovo." The World Today (1996): 226–229.
  • Simic, Predrag. "The Kosovo and Metohija Problem and Regional Security in the Balkans." Kosovo: Avoiding Another Balkan War (1996): 195.
  • Veremēs, Thanos, and Euangelos Kōphos, eds. Kosovo: avoiding another Balkan war. Hellenic, 1998.
  • Triantaphyllou, Dimitrios. "Kosovo today: Is there no way out of the deadlock?." European Security 5.2 (1996): 279–302.
  • Troebst, Stefan, and Alexander: Festschrift Langer. Conflict in Kosovo: failure of prevention?: an analytical documentation, 1992–1998. Vol. 1. Flensburg: European Centre for Minority Issues, 1998.
  • Heraclides, Alexis. "The Kosovo Conflict and Its Resolution: In Pursuit of Ariadne's Thread." Security Dialogue 28.3 (1997): 317–331.
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