The Kosovo War, was an armed conflict in Kosovo that lasted from 28 February 1998 until 11 June 1999. It was fought between the forces of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which controlled Kosovo before the war, and the Kosovo Albanian separatist militia known as the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). The conflict ended when the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) intervened by beginning air strikes in March 1999 which resulted in Yugoslav forces withdrawing from Kosovo.
The Kosovo Liberation Army was an ethnic Albanian separatist militia that sought the separation of Kosovo, the vast majority of which is inhabited by Albanians, from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) and Serbia during the 1990s. Albanian nationalism was a central tenet of the KLA and many in its ranks supported the creation of a Greater Albania, which would encompass all Albanians in the Balkans, stressing Albanian culture, ethnicity and nation.
The Liberation Army of Preševo, Medveđa and Bujanovac was an Albanian militant insurgent group fighting for separation from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia for three municipalities: Preševo, Medveđa, and Bujanovac, home to most of the Albanians in south Serbia, adjacent to Kosovo. Of the three municipalities, two have an ethnic Albanian majority, whilst Medveđa has a significant minority of them.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) carried out an aerial bombing campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War. The air strikes lasted from 24 March 1999 to 10 June 1999. The bombings continued until an agreement was reached that led to the withdrawal of the Yugoslav Army 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, possibly 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.
The Podujevo bus bombing was an attack on a bus carrying Serb civilians near the town of Podujevo in Kosovo on 16 February 2001. The bombing killed twelve Serb civilians who were travelling to Gračanica and injured dozens more. Albanian extremists are suspected of being responsible for the attack. Gračanica is a predominantly Serb-populated town in central Kosovo, near the regional capital Pristina, in a predominantly Albanian-populated area. Following the Kosovo War in 1999 it became an enclave within Albanian-controlled territory. Relations between the two communities were tense and occasionally violent.
On 17–18 March 2004, violence erupted in the partitioned town of Mitrovica, Kosovo, leaving hundreds wounded and at least 14 people dead. The unrest was precipitated by reports in the Kosovo Albanian media which claimed that three Kosovo Albanian boys had drowned after being chased into the Ibar River by a group of Kosovo Serbs. UN peacekeepers and NATO troops scrambled to contain a raging gun battle between Serbs and Albanians. Serbs call the event the March Pogrom, while the Albanians call it the March Unrest.
The 2001 insurgency in Macedonia was an armed conflict which began when the ethnic Albanian National Liberation Army (NLA) insurgent group, formed from veterans of the Kosovo War and Insurgency in the Preševo Valley, attacked Macedonian security forces at the beginning of February 2001, and ended with the Ohrid Agreement, signed on 13 August of that same year. There were also claims that the NLA ultimately wished to see Albanian-majority areas secede from the country, though high-ranking members of the group have denied this. The conflict lasted throughout most of the year, although overall casualties remained limited to several dozen individuals on either side, according to sources from both sides of the conflict. With it, the Yugoslav Wars had reached Macedonia. The Socialist Republic of Macedonia had achieved peaceful independence from Yugoslavia in 1991.
The Insurgency in the Preševo Valley was an approximately two year-long armed conflict between 1999 and 2001, between the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the ethnic Albanian separatists of the Liberation Army of Preševo, Medveđa and Bujanovac (UÇPMB). There were instances during the conflict in which the Yugoslav government requested KFOR support in suppressing UÇPMB attacks since they could only use lightly armed military forces as part of the Kumanovo Treaty that ended the Kosovo War, which created a buffer zone between FR Yugoslavia and Kosovo.
The Battle of Košare was fought during the Kosovo War between the FR Yugoslav Forces and the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), the latter supported by the NATO air forces and Albanian Army. The battle was fought around Košare on the border between FR Yugoslavia and Albania from 9 April 1999 until 10 June 1999 during the NATO bombing of FR Yugoslavia.
The Battle of Tetovo, was the largest engagement during the 2001 insurgency in the Republic of Macedonia, in which Macedonian security forces battled the National Liberation Army (NLA) for control of the city.
Clashes between the Republic of Kosovo and ethnic Serbs in northern Kosovo began on 25 July 2011 when the Kosovo Police crossed into the Serb-controlled municipalities of North Kosovo, to control several administrative border crossings. This was done without the Kosovo Police consulting either Serbia or Kosovo Force (KFOR)/EULEX. Though tensions between the two sides eased somewhat after the intervention of NATO's KFOR forces, they remained high amid concern from the European Union, which also blamed Kosovo for the unilateral provocation. On 19 April 2013, an agreement was signed in Brussels between representatives of Kosovo and Serbia. The 15-point document granted devolved powers to North Kosovo regarding economic development, education, healthcare and urban planning, and several mechanisms that allowed a certain autonomy in justice, policing and electoral matters.
The Staro Gracko massacre was the mass killing of 14 Kosovo Serb farmers in the village of Staro Gracko in the Kosovo municipality of Lipjan on 23 July 1999. The killings occurred after Yugoslav troops withdrew from the region in the aftermath of the Kosovo War, and was the worst single crime in Kosovo since the conflict ended in June 1999. As of 2019 the perpetrators of the killings have never been found and held accountable.
The Dubrava Prison massacre was the war time killing of at least 99 Kosovo Albanian prisoners and the wounding of around 200 more in the Dubrava Prison, in north-western Kosovo between 22 and 24 May 1999.
On December 14, 1998, the Yugoslav Army (VJ) ambushed a group of 140 Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) militants attempting to smuggle weapons and supplies from their base in Albania into the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. A five-hour battle ensued, ending with the deaths of 36 militants and the capture of a further nine. Dozens more fled back to Albania, abandoning large quantities of weapons and supplies, which the Yugoslav authorities subsequently seized. The ambush was the most serious war-related incident in Kosovo since a U.S.-negotiated truce took effect two months before. It came on the heels of increasing tensions in the province, where inter-ethnic violence had been escalating steadily since early 1995.
The 2000 unrest in Kosovo was the result of the United Nations Interim Administration adopting Resolution 1244 on 10 June 1999. The unrest was fought between the Kosovo Force (KFOR), Kosovo Albanians, and Kosovo Serbs. It lasted somewhere from February 16, 2000 – June 6, 2000. An unknown number of Kosovo Albanians and Kosovo Serbs died along with an unknown number injured, while 1 Russian KFOR soldier died from shot wounds and UNMIK vehicles were burned during the unrest.
The Battle of Oraovica was a conflict between the army and police of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Albanian militant group Liberation Army of Preševo, Medveđa and Bujanovac (UÇPMB) during the 1999-2001 insurgency in the Preševo Valley.
The Battle of Paštrik was a two-week confrontation between the KLA with NATO's support against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1999, during the Kosovo War. The official goal of the KLA was to seize the border between Albania and Kosovo, and eliminate the Yugoslav units there. The offensive was codenamed "Operation Arrow" by the KLA.
The Ugljare mass grave is a burial site in the village of Ugljare in the Kosovo municipality of Gjilan. Those buried include Kosovo Serbs and possibly Kosovo Albanians sometime around July 1999. At the time, it was the only case which involved in the Kosovo war crimes tribunal the investigation of a crime against civilians which was possibly committed by Albanians against Serbs. No perpetrators have been found. Kosovo leaders during the war, including former Prime Minister and the "George Washington of Kosovo", Hashim Thaci, are currently on trial for crimes against humanity, murder, forced deportation, kidnapping, and persecution of Serbs and other minorities in a specially commissioned court, The Kosovo Specialist Chambers, established to prosecute Albanian leaders for crimes during and after the Kosovo War.
The Ground Safety Zone was a 5-kilometre-wide demilitarized zone (DMZ) established in June 1999 after the signing of the Kumanovo agreement which ended the Kosovo War. It bordered the area between inner Republic of Serbia in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) and Kosovo.
Kosovo Force 
German Army 
Yugoslav Army stragglers
