The Kosovo War was an armed conflict in Kosovo that started in February 1998 and lasted until 11 June 1999. It was fought by the forces of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which controlled Kosovo before the war, and the Kosovo Albanian rebel group known as the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), with air support from the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) from 24 March 1999.
The United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) is the officially mandated mission of the United Nations in Kosovo. The UNMIK describes its mandate as being to "help the United Nations Security Council achieve an overall objective, namely, to ensure conditions for a peaceful and normal life for all inhabitants of Kosovo and advance regional stability in the western Balkans."
The Kosovo Liberation Army was an ethnic-Albanian separatist militia that sought the separation of Kosovo from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) and Serbia during the 1990s and the eventual creation of Greater Albania due to the presence of a vast ethnic majority of Albanians in the region, stressing Albanian culture, ethnicity and nation. It was considered a terrorist group until the breakup of Yugoslavia.
The NATO bombing of Yugoslavia was the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation's (NATO) military operation against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War. The air strikes lasted from March 24, 1999 to June 10, 1999. The bombings continued until an agreement was reached that led to the withdrawal of Yugoslav armed forces from Kosovo, and the establishment of the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo, a UN peacekeeping mission in Kosovo. The official NATO operation code name was "Operation Allied Force" whereas the United States called it "Operation Noble Anvil"; in Yugoslavia the operation was incorrectly called "Merciful Angel" as a result of a misunderstanding or mistranslation.
The Kosovo Force (KFOR) is a NATO-led international peacekeeping force in Kosovo. Its operations are gradually reducing until Kosovo's Security Force, established in 2009, becomes self sufficient.
Operation Horseshoe was a 1999 alleged plan to ethnically cleanse Albanians in Kosovo. The plan was to be carried out by Serbian police and the Yugoslav army. Claims that the plan was being implemented were NATO's justification for their bombing of Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War.
The Allied Rapid Reaction Corps (ARRC) is a North Atlantic Treaty Organization High Readiness Force (Land) Headquarters ready for deployment worldwide.
The Kosovo Campaign Medal (KCM) is a military award of the United States Armed Forces established by Executive Order 13154 of President Bill Clinton on May 3, 2000. The medal recognizes military service performed in Kosovo from March 24, 1999 through December 31, 2013.
The European Rapid Operational Force (EUROFOR) was a multinational rapid reaction force composed of forces from four states of the European Union: Italy, France, Portugal and Spain. It had a permanent staff capable of commanding operations, involving commitments of up to a Light Division in size. Eurofor was formed in May 1995 in Lisbon, and was answerable to the Western European Union (WEU) directly. It was tasked with performing Petersberg tasks, including humanitarian, peacekeeping and peace enforcement missions. With the merger of several WEU elements into the European Union, Eurofor had by and large become part of the Common Security and Defence Policy. It was eventually transformed into an EU Battlegroup and was on standby from 1 July until 31 December 2011. On 2 July 2012, Eurofor was dissolved.
Joint Task Force (JTF) Shining Hope was the United States contribution to Operation Allied Harbor. The mission of JTF Shining Hope was to conduct foreign humanitarian assistance operations in support of US government agencies and non-governmental and international organizations engaged in providing humanitarian relief to Kosovar refugees in Albania and Macedonia. JTF Shining Hope was commanded by Major General William S. Hinton Jr., United States Air Force.
Many human rights groups criticised civilian casualties resulting from military actions of NATO forces in Operation Allied Force. Both Serbs and Albanians were killed in 90 Human Rights Watch-confirmed incidents in which civilians died as a result of NATO bombing. It reported that as few as 489 and as many as 528 Yugoslav civilians were killed in the NATO airstrikes. "There is always a cost to defeat an evil," said NATO spokesman Jamie Shea, "It never comes free, unfortunately. But the cost of failure to defeat a great evil is far higher." He insisted NATO planes had bombed only "legitimate designated military targets," and if more civilians had died it was because NATO had been forced into military action. He then defended this notion by stating, "NATO does not attack civilian targets, we attack exclusively military targets and take every precaution to avoid inflicting harm on civilians."
The Albanian Joint Forces Command, consists in the branch of the Albanian Armed Forces charged with protecting the territorial integrity of Albania. The Command has under the proper structure the Rapid Reaction Brigade, the Special Operations Battalion (Albania), the Albanian Air Force, the Albanian Naval Defense Forces and the Area Support Brigade.
The Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija, commonly known as Kosovo and Metohija or Kosovo for short and abbreviated as KiM or Kosmet, refers to the region of Kosovo as defined in the Constitution of Serbia. The territory of the province is disputed between Serbia and the self-proclaimed Republic of Kosovo, the latter of which has de facto control. The region had functioned as part of Serbia for most of the period between 1912 and 1999.
The Kosovo Security Force is the military of Kosovo, tasked with territorial protection and crisis response operations in Kosovo and abroad. Its main tasks are territorial defense, search and rescue, explosive ordnance and hazardous material disposal, and firefighting. The KSF's commander is Lieutenant General Rrahman Rama.
A series of war crimes were committed during the Kosovo War. The forces of the Slobodan Milošević regime committed rape, killed many Albanian civilians and expelled them during the war, alongside the widespread destruction of civilian, cultural and religious property. According to the Human Rights Watch, the vast majority of the violations from January 1998 to April 1999 were attributable to Serbian police or the Yugoslav army. Violations also included war crimes committed by the Kosovo Liberation Army, such as kidnappings and summary executions of members of Serbian community, members of other minorities and Albanians who were considered traitors. In 2014, the Humanitarian Law Center released a list of people killed or went missing during the war, including 8,661 Kosovo Albanian civilians, 1,797 ethnic Serbs and 447 civilians of other ethnicities such as Romani people and Bosniaks.
A confrontation between Russian forces and NATO forces over the Pristina International Airport occurred on 12 June 1999, in the aftermath of the Kosovo War. Russian troops occupied the airport ahead of a NATO deployment, resulting in a tense stand-off, which was resolved peacefully.
Kosovo refugees in Albania refers to the mostly ethnic Albanians of Kosovo fleeing the Kosovo War into neighboring Albania in 1999. This crisis was exceptional at the time, as a movement of population this big in such a short period of time was unseen since WWII. In addition to the ones going to Albania, a large number of Kosovo refugees fled to the Republic of Macedonia. Almost all of the remaining 500,000 to 600,000 individuals in Kosovo were also displaced in the region itself, without leaving it.
The Kosovo Verification Mission (KVM) was an OSCE mission to verify that the Serbian, and Yugoslav forces were complying with the UN October Agreement to end atrocities in Kosovo, withdraw armed forces from Kosovo, and abide by a ceasefire.
Task Force ALBA was the name of a humanitarian operation of the Swiss Air Force in Albania under a UNHCR-mission during 1999. The goals of the operation were to restore living conditions, provide humanitarian aid, and prevent the outbreak of civil war. It was the first longterm humanitarian mission for the Air Force abroad and the first use of Swiss Air Force helicopters in the edge region of a war zone.
The Multinational Specialized Unit (MSU), is a unit of the Carabinieri, dedicated to the military missions abroad, including the military and civilian police tasks, peacekeeping operations, crowd and riot control.
