Kosovo Liberation Army
Encyclopedia
The Kosovo Liberation Army or KLA ( or ) was a Kosovar Albanian
paramilitary organization which sought the separation of Kosovo from Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
Its campaign against Yugoslav
security forces precipitated a major Yugoslav military crackdown which led to the Kosovo War
of 1998–1999. Military intervention by Yugoslav security forces led by Slobodan Milošević
and Serb militias within Kosovo prompted an exodus of Kosovar Albanians and a refugee crisis that eventually caused NATO to intervene militarily in order to stop what was widely identified (by NATO nations, human rights organizations, the EU, and western media) as an ongoing campaign of ethnic cleansing
. Later the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia
, ICTY legally found that Serbia “use[d] violence and terror to force a significant number of Kosovo Albanians from their homes and across the borders, in order for the state authorities to maintain control over Kosovo” by means of "The commission of murder, sexual assault" and other war crimes.
The conflict was ended by a negotiated agreement that requested the UN
to take over the administration
and political process
, including local institutional building
and determine the final status of the region.
The KLA was regarded by the US as a terrorist group until 1998 when it was de-listed for classified reasons, and then the UK and the US lobbied France to do the same. The US then cultivated diplomatic relationships with the KLA leaders. In 1999 the KLA was officially disbanded and their members entered other armed groups such as various Albanian Macedonian rebels, the UCPMB
in the Preševo Valley
region and UNMIK instituted NGOs within Kosovo such as the Kosovo Protection Corps
(in accordance with UNSC resolution 1244 which required the establishment of a civilian emergency protection body to replace the former KLA) and Kosovo Police Force. Some of the Kosovo Liberation Army leadership opted to enter politics, and by taking advantage of the 1999 confusion they still lead the Albanian faction of the partially recognized Kosovar government.
The KLA used child soldiers, 10% of their fighters being under the age of 18, and some being as young as 13.
In early 2011 the Council of Europe
has viewed a report on the alleged criminal activities and the alleged organ harvesting controversy by Dick Marty
.
According to Roland Keith, a field office director of the OSCE Kosovo Verification Mission:
According to the report of the U.S. Committee for Refugees:
The Yugoslav Red Cross had estimated a total of 30,000 refugees and IDP
s from Kosovo, most of whom were Serb. The UNHCR estimated the figure at 55,000 refugees who had fled to Montenegro
and Central Serbia
, most of whom were Kosovo Serbs:
The NATO North Atlantic Council had stressed that KLA was "the main initiator of the violence" and that it had "launched what appears to be a deliberate campaign of provocation".
The KLA usually rewarded after service its international volunteers with a passage home, as a gesture of thanks.
, which worked alongside NATO forces patrolling the province. The KLA legacy remains powerful within Kosovo. Its former members still play a major role in Kosovar politics.
Its former political head Hashim Thaçi
is now the leader of the Democratic Party of Kosovo
and the Prime Minister of Kosovo since January 2008.
The KLA's former military head, Agim Çeku
, after the war became Prime Minister of Kosovo. The move caused some controversy in Serbia, as Belgrade regarded him as a war criminal, though he was never indicted by the Hague tribunal.
Ramush Haradinaj
, a former KLA commander, served briefly as Prime Minister of Kosovo
before he turned himself in to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
(ICTY) at The Hague
to stand trial on war crimes charges, and was later acquitted.
Fatmir Limaj
, one of the senior commanders of the KLA, was also tried at The Hague, and was acquitted of all charges in November 2005. He has since been arrested by the EU police in Kosovo on war crimes charges.
Hajredin Bala, an ex-KLA prison guard, was sentenced on 30 November 2005 to 13 years’ imprisonment for the mistreatment of three prisoners at the Llapushnik prison camp
, his personal role in the "maintenance and enforcement of the inhumane conditions" of the camp, aiding the torture of one prisoner, and of participating in the murder of nine prisoners from the camp who were marched to the Berisha Mountains on 25 or 26 July 1998 and killed. Bala appealed the sentence and the appeal is still pending.
(German secret Service). (...) The BND men were in charge of selecting recruits for the KLA command structure from the 500,000 Kosovars in Albania." 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.
James Bissett, Canadian Ambassador to Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Albania, wrote in 1990 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. (...) The hope was that with Kosovo in flames NATO could intervene ..." According to Tim Judah
, KLA representatives had already met with American, British, and Swiss intelligence agencies in 1996, and possibly "several years earlier" 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". Intelligence agents denied, however, that they were involved in arming the KLA.
American Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher
, while opposed to American ground troops in Kosovo, advocated for America providing support to the Kosovo Liberation to help them gain their freedom. He was honored by the Albanian American Civic League at a New Jersey located fundraising event on July 23rd, 2001. President of the League, Joseph J. DioGuardi, praised Rohrabacher for his support to the Kosovo Liberation Army
, saying "He was the first member of Congress to insist that the United States arm the Kosova Liberation Army, and one of the few members who to this day publicly supports the independence of Kosova." Rohrabacher gave a speech in support of American equipping the KLA with weaponry, comparing it to French support of America in the Revolutionary War, saying "Based on our own experience, the Kosova Liberation Army should have been armed." "If the U.S. had armed the KLA in 1998, we would not be where we are today. The 'freedom fighters' would have secured their freedom and Kosova would be independent."
(HRW):
The KLA engaged in tit-for-tat attacks against Serbian nationalists in Kosovo, reprisals against ethnic Albanians who "collaborated" with the Serbian government, and bombed police stations and cafes known to be frequented by Serb officials, killing innocent civilians in the process. Most of its activities were funded by drug running, though its ties to community groups and Albanian exiles gave it local popularity.
The Yugoslav authorities regarded the KLA as a terrorist group, though many European governments did not. The Serbian government also reported that the KLA had killed and kidnapped no fewer than 3,276 civilians of various ethnic descriptions including some Albanians. President Bill Clinton's special envoy to the Balkans, Robert Gelbard
, described the KLA as, "without any questions, a terrorist group."
The exact number of victims of the KLA is not known. According to a Serbian government report, from January 1, 1998 to June 10, 1999 the KLA killed 988 people and kidnapped 287; in the period from June 10, 1999 to November 11, 2001, when NATO took control in Kosovo, 847 were reported to have been killed and 1,154 kidnapped. This comprised both civilians and security force personnel: of those killed in the first period, 335 were civilians, 351 soldiers, 230 police and 72 were unidentified; by nationality, 87 of killed civilians were Serbs, 230 Albanians, and 18 of other nationalities. Following the withdrawal of Serbian and Yugoslav security forces from Kosovo in June 1999, all casualties were civilians, the vast majority being Serbs. According to Human Rights Watch, as “many as one thousand Serbs and Roma have been murdered or have gone missing since June 12, 1999.”
The Podujevo bus bombing was a terrorist attack on a civilian bus in a Serb-populated area near the town of Podujevo, Kosovo on 16 February 2001 by Kosovar Albanian extremists.
Carla Del Ponte
, a long-time ICTY
chief prosecutor, claimed in her book The Hunt: Me and the War Criminals
that there were instances of organ trafficking
in 1999 after the end of the Kosovo War
. These allegations were dismissed by Kosovar
and Albania
n authorities. The allegations have been rejected by Kosovar authorities as fabrications while the ICTY has said "no reliable evidence had been obtained to substantiate the allegations".
Kosovo Liberation Army members were sentenced for murdering 32 non-Albanian civilians. In the same case, another 35 civilians are missing while 153 were tortured and released.
's special envoy to the Balkans, Robert Gelbard, condemned both the actions of Serb government and of the KLA, and described the KLA as, "without any questions, a terrorist group". UN resolution 1160
took a similar stance. These statements made Milosevic believe that he could attack the KLA without any repercussion, precipitating the March 1999 war.
But the 1997 US Department's terrorist list hadn't included the KLA. In March 1998, just one month later Gerbald had to modify his statements to say that KLA had not been classified legally by the U.S. government as a terrorist group, and the US government approached the KLA leaders to make them interlocutors with the Serbs. A Wall Street Journal article claimed later that the US government had removed in February 1998 the KLA from the list of terrorist organizations,, a removal that has never been confirmed. France didn't delist the KLA until late 1998, after strong US and UK lobbying. KLA is still present in the MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base
list of terrorist groups, and is listed as an inactive terrorist organization by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism
from the Homeland Security
.
During the war, the KLA troops collaborated with the NATO troops, and they were qualified by the NATO as "freedom fighters". In late 1999 the KLA was disbanded and its members entered the Kosovo Protection Corps
.
Albanians
Albanians are a nation and ethnic group native to Albania and neighbouring countries. They speak the Albanian language. More than half of all Albanians live in Albania and Kosovo...
paramilitary organization which sought the separation of Kosovo from Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
Its campaign against Yugoslav
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
security forces precipitated a major Yugoslav military crackdown which led to the Kosovo War
Kosovo War
The term Kosovo War or Kosovo conflict was two sequential, and at times parallel, armed conflicts in Kosovo province, then part of FR Yugoslav Republic of Serbia; from early 1998 to 1999, there was an armed conflict initiated by the ethnic Albanian "Kosovo Liberation Army" , who sought independence...
of 1998–1999. Military intervention by Yugoslav security forces led by Slobodan Milošević
Slobodan Milošević
Slobodan Milošević was President of Serbia and Yugoslavia. He served as the President of Socialist Republic of Serbia and Republic of Serbia from 1989 until 1997 in three terms and as President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1997 to 2000...
and Serb militias within Kosovo prompted an exodus of Kosovar Albanians and a refugee crisis that eventually caused NATO to intervene militarily in order to stop what was widely identified (by NATO nations, human rights organizations, the EU, and western media) as an ongoing campaign of ethnic cleansing
Ethnic cleansing
Ethnic cleansing is a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic orreligious group from certain geographic areas....
. Later the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
The International Tribunal for the Prosecution of Persons Responsible for Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law Committed in the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia since 1991, more commonly referred to as the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia or ICTY, is a...
, ICTY legally found that Serbia “use[d] violence and terror to force a significant number of Kosovo Albanians from their homes and across the borders, in order for the state authorities to maintain control over Kosovo” by means of "The commission of murder, sexual assault" and other war crimes.
The conflict was ended by a negotiated agreement that requested the UN
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
to take over the administration
United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo
The United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo or UNMIK is the interim civilian administration in Kosovo, under the authority of the United Nations. The mission was established on 10 June 1999 by Security Council Resolution 1244...
and political process
Politics of Kosovo
The Politics of Kosovo takes place in a framework of a multi-party parliamentary representative democratic republic, whereby the Prime Minister of Kosovo is the head of government, and the President of Kosovo is the head of state. Executive power is exercised by the Executive of Kosovo. Legislative...
, including local institutional building
Provisional Institutions of Self-Government
The Provisional Institutions of Self-Government or 'PISG' are the local administrative bodies in Kosovo established by the United Nations administration in that province under the terms of UNSCR 1244...
and determine the final status of the region.
The KLA was regarded by the US as a terrorist group until 1998 when it was de-listed for classified reasons, and then the UK and the US lobbied France to do the same. The US then cultivated diplomatic relationships with the KLA leaders. In 1999 the KLA was officially disbanded and their members entered other armed groups such as various Albanian Macedonian rebels, the UCPMB
UCPMB
The Liberation Army of Preševo, Medveđa and Bujanovac was a separatist militant group fighting for independence from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia for the three municipalities: Preševo, Bujanovac, and Medveđa, home to most of the ethnic Albanians of Central Serbia, adjacent to Kosovo.UCPMB's...
in the Preševo Valley
Preševo Valley
The Preševo Valley , is an Albanian political catchphrase used to describe the two south Serbian municipalities of Bujanovac and Preševo, which have a majority ethnic Albanian population. Medvedja municipality is sometimes also included under this term, although it has a majority Serbian population...
region and UNMIK instituted NGOs within Kosovo such as the Kosovo Protection Corps
Kosovo Protection Corps
The Kosovo Protection Corps was a civilian emergency services organisation in Kosovo active from 1999 to 2009.The KPC was created on September 21, 1999 through the promulgation of UNMIK Regulation 1999/8 and the agreement of a "Statement of Principles" on the KPC's permitted role in Kosovo...
(in accordance with UNSC resolution 1244 which required the establishment of a civilian emergency protection body to replace the former KLA) and Kosovo Police Force. Some of the Kosovo Liberation Army leadership opted to enter politics, and by taking advantage of the 1999 confusion they still lead the Albanian faction of the partially recognized Kosovar government.
The KLA used child soldiers, 10% of their fighters being under the age of 18, and some being as young as 13.
In early 2011 the Council of Europe
Council of Europe
The Council of Europe is an international organisation promoting co-operation between all countries of Europe in the areas of legal standards, human rights, democratic development, the rule of law and cultural co-operation...
has viewed a report on the alleged criminal activities and the alleged organ harvesting controversy by Dick Marty
Dick Marty
Dick Marty is a Swiss politician and former state prosecutor of the canton of Ticino. He is a member of the Swiss Council of States , and a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.-Education:Marty holds a doctorate in law from the University of Neuchâtel with the thesis:...
.
First attacks
In February 1996 the KLA undertook a series of attacks against targets which included police stations and Yugoslav government officers, alleging that they had killed Albanian civilians as part of an ethnic cleansing campaign. 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.According to Roland Keith, a field office director of the OSCE Kosovo Verification Mission:
According to the report of the U.S. Committee for Refugees:
The Yugoslav Red Cross had estimated a total of 30,000 refugees and IDP
Internally displaced person
An internally displaced person is someone who is forced to flee his or her home but who remains within his or her country's borders. They are often referred to as refugees, although they do not fall within the current legal definition of a refugee. At the end of 2006 it was estimated there were...
s from Kosovo, most of whom were Serb. The UNHCR estimated the figure at 55,000 refugees who had fled to Montenegro
Montenegro
Montenegro Montenegrin: Crna Gora Црна Гора , meaning "Black Mountain") is a country located in Southeastern Europe. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea to the south-west and is bordered by Croatia to the west, Bosnia and Herzegovina to the northwest, Serbia to the northeast and Albania to the...
and Central Serbia
Central Serbia
Central Serbia , also referred to as Serbia proper , was the region of Serbia from 1945 to 2009. It included central parts of Serbia outside of the autonomous provinces of Kosovo and Vojvodina. The region of Central Serbia was not an administrative division of Serbia as such; it was under the...
, most of whom were Kosovo Serbs:
The NATO North Atlantic Council had stressed that KLA was "the main initiator of the violence" and that it had "launched what appears to be a deliberate campaign of provocation".
Foreign volunteers
The KLA included in its ranks foreign volunteers from Sweden, Belgium, the UK, Germany, Albania, and the US, and France. 30-40 Volunteers from the Croatian Forces International Volunteers Association also participated in training KLA troops.The KLA usually rewarded after service its international volunteers with a passage home, as a gesture of thanks.
Aftermath (post-1999)
After the war, the KLA was transformed into the Kosovo Protection CorpsKosovo Protection Corps
The Kosovo Protection Corps was a civilian emergency services organisation in Kosovo active from 1999 to 2009.The KPC was created on September 21, 1999 through the promulgation of UNMIK Regulation 1999/8 and the agreement of a "Statement of Principles" on the KPC's permitted role in Kosovo...
, which worked alongside NATO forces patrolling the province. The KLA legacy remains powerful within Kosovo. Its former members still play a major role in Kosovar politics.
Its former political head Hashim Thaçi
Hashim Thaci
Hashim Thaçi is the Prime Minister of Republic of Kosovo, the leader of the Democratic Party of Kosovo , and former political leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army .-Early life and education:...
is now the leader of the Democratic Party of Kosovo
Democratic Party of Kosovo
The Democratic Party of Kosovo is the largest political party in Kosovo . It is a social democratic party and the main leftist party in Kosovo....
and the Prime Minister of Kosovo since January 2008.
The KLA's former military head, Agim Çeku
Agim Çeku
Agim Çeku is the current Minister of Security Forces for the Republic of Kosovo. He is also the former Prime Minister of Kosovo and a chief of the Kosovo Liberation Army . He was born in the village of Ćuška near Peć, in the Yugoslav province of Kosovo .Çeku is an ethnic Albanian...
, after the war became Prime Minister of Kosovo. The move caused some controversy in Serbia, as Belgrade regarded him as a war criminal, though he was never indicted by the Hague tribunal.
Ramush Haradinaj
Ramush Haradinaj
Ramush Haradinaj is a former leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army and former prime minister of Kosovo. He leads the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo and is among former KLA officers charged of war crimes during the 1999 Kosovo War by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia...
, a former KLA commander, served briefly as Prime Minister of Kosovo
Prime Minister of Kosovo
The Prime Minister of Kosovo is Head of Government of the disputed Republic of Kosovo .The Prime Minister and the Government of Kosovo, which he or she heads, are responsible for their actions to the Assembly of Kosovo, of which they must all be members...
before he turned himself in to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
The International Tribunal for the Prosecution of Persons Responsible for Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law Committed in the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia since 1991, more commonly referred to as the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia or ICTY, is a...
(ICTY) at The Hague
The Hague
The Hague is the capital city of the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. With a population of 500,000 inhabitants , it is the third largest city of the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam...
to stand trial on war crimes charges, and was later acquitted.
Fatmir Limaj
Fatmir Limaj
Fatmir Limaj is a politician from Kosovo. He is a member of the Democratic Party of Kosovo and is considered to be Hashim Thaçi's right hand and close political partner...
, one of the senior commanders of the KLA, was also tried at The Hague, and was acquitted of all charges in November 2005. He has since been arrested by the EU police in Kosovo on war crimes charges.
Hajredin Bala, an ex-KLA prison guard, was sentenced on 30 November 2005 to 13 years’ imprisonment for the mistreatment of three prisoners at the Llapushnik prison camp
Llapushnik prison camp
Lapušnik or Llapushnik prison camp was a detention camp near the city of Glogovac in central Kosovo during the Kosovo war, early 1998, held by the Kosovo Liberation Army for the intimidation, imprisonment, violence and murder of Serbs and perceived Albanian collaborators who refused to cooperate...
, his personal role in the "maintenance and enforcement of the inhumane conditions" of the camp, aiding the torture of one prisoner, and of participating in the murder of nine prisoners from the camp who were marched to the Berisha Mountains on 25 or 26 July 1998 and killed. Bala appealed the sentence and the appeal is still pending.
Foreign support
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 BNDBundesnachrichtendienst
The Bundesnachrichtendienst [ˌbʊndəsˈnaːχʁɪçtnˌdiːnst] is the foreign intelligence agency of Germany, directly subordinated to the Chancellor's Office. Its headquarters are in Pullach near Munich, and Berlin . The BND has 300 locations in Germany and foreign countries...
(German secret Service). (...) The BND men were in charge of selecting recruits for the KLA command structure from the 500,000 Kosovars in Albania." Former senior adviser to the German parliament Matthias Küntzel
Matthias Küntzel
Matthias Küntzel , is a German author and a political scientist. He is a research associate at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a member of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East.-Career:...
tried to prove later on that German secret diplomacy had been instrumental in helping the KLA since its creation.
James Bissett, Canadian Ambassador to Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Albania, wrote in 1990 that media reports indicate that "as early as 1998, the Central Intelligence Agency
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
assisted by the British Special Air Service were arming and training Kosovo Liberation Army members in Albania to foment armed rebellion in Kosovo. (...) The hope was that with Kosovo in flames NATO could intervene ..." According to Tim Judah
Tim Judah
Tim Judah is a front line reporter for The Economist and author. A graduate of the London School of Economics and of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University he worked for the BBC before becoming the Balkans correspondent for The Times and The Economist. During the Kosovo war he...
, KLA representatives had already met with American, British, and Swiss intelligence agencies in 1996, and possibly "several years earlier" and according to The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times is a British Sunday newspaper.The Sunday Times may also refer to:*The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times...
, "American intelligence agents have admitted they helped to train the Kosovo Liberation Army before NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia". Intelligence agents denied, however, that they were involved in arming the KLA.
American Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher
Dana Rohrabacher
Dana Tyron Rohrabacher is the U.S. Representative for , and previously the 45th and 42nd, serving since 1989. He is a member of the Republican Party...
, while opposed to American ground troops in Kosovo, advocated for America providing support to the Kosovo Liberation to help them gain their freedom. He was honored by the Albanian American Civic League at a New Jersey located fundraising event on July 23rd, 2001. President of the League, Joseph J. DioGuardi, praised Rohrabacher for his support to the Kosovo Liberation Army
Kosovo Liberation Army
The Kosovo Liberation Army or KLA was a Kosovar Albanian paramilitary organization which sought the separation of Kosovo from Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in the 1990s....
, saying "He was the first member of Congress to insist that the United States arm the Kosova Liberation Army, and one of the few members who to this day publicly supports the independence of Kosova." Rohrabacher gave a speech in support of American equipping the KLA with weaponry, comparing it to French support of America in the Revolutionary War, saying "Based on our own experience, the Kosova Liberation Army should have been armed." "If the U.S. had armed the KLA in 1998, we would not be where we are today. The 'freedom fighters' would have secured their freedom and Kosova would be independent."
Abuses
There have been reports of war crimes committed by the KLA both during and after the conflict. These have been directed against Serbs, other ethnic minorities (primarily the Roma) and against ethnic Albanians accused of collaborating with Serb authorities. According to a 2001 report by Human Rights WatchHuman Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Its headquarters are in New York City and it has offices in Berlin, Beirut, Brussels, Chicago, Geneva, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Moscow, Paris, San Francisco, Tokyo,...
(HRW):
The KLA was responsible for serious abuses… including abductions and murders of Serbs and ethnic Albanians considered collaborators with the state.
Elements of the KLA are also responsible for post-conflict attacks on Serbs, Roma, and other non-Albanians, as well as ethnic Albanian political rivals... widespread and systematic burning and looting of homes belonging to Serbs, Roma, and other minorities and the destruction of Orthodox churches and monasteries... combined with harassment and intimidation designed to force people from their homes and communities... elements of the KLA are clearly responsible for many of these crimes.
The KLA engaged in tit-for-tat attacks against Serbian nationalists in Kosovo, reprisals against ethnic Albanians who "collaborated" with the Serbian government, and bombed police stations and cafes known to be frequented by Serb officials, killing innocent civilians in the process. Most of its activities were funded by drug running, though its ties to community groups and Albanian exiles gave it local popularity.
The Yugoslav authorities regarded the KLA as a terrorist group, though many European governments did not. The Serbian government also reported that the KLA had killed and kidnapped no fewer than 3,276 civilians of various ethnic descriptions including some Albanians. President Bill Clinton's special envoy to the Balkans, Robert Gelbard
Robert S. Gelbard
Robert S. Gelbard is a diplomat and former United States Ambassador to Bolivia and Indonesia . He is a member of the American Academy of Diplomacy, and is a 1964 graduate of Colby College and a 1979 graduate of the Harvard Kennedy School, where he received a Master of Public Administration.In the...
, described the KLA as, "without any questions, a terrorist group."
The exact number of victims of the KLA is not known. According to a Serbian government report, from January 1, 1998 to June 10, 1999 the KLA killed 988 people and kidnapped 287; in the period from June 10, 1999 to November 11, 2001, when NATO took control in Kosovo, 847 were reported to have been killed and 1,154 kidnapped. This comprised both civilians and security force personnel: of those killed in the first period, 335 were civilians, 351 soldiers, 230 police and 72 were unidentified; by nationality, 87 of killed civilians were Serbs, 230 Albanians, and 18 of other nationalities. Following the withdrawal of Serbian and Yugoslav security forces from Kosovo in June 1999, all casualties were civilians, the vast majority being Serbs. According to Human Rights Watch, as “many as one thousand Serbs and Roma have been murdered or have gone missing since June 12, 1999.”
The Podujevo bus bombing was a terrorist attack on a civilian bus in a Serb-populated area near the town of Podujevo, Kosovo on 16 February 2001 by Kosovar Albanian extremists.
Carla Del Ponte
Carla Del Ponte
Carla Del Ponte is a former Chief Prosecutor of two United Nations international criminal law tribunals. A former Swiss attorney general, she was appointed prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in August...
, a long-time ICTY
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
The International Tribunal for the Prosecution of Persons Responsible for Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law Committed in the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia since 1991, more commonly referred to as the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia or ICTY, is a...
chief prosecutor, claimed in her book The Hunt: Me and the War Criminals
The Hunt: Me and the War Criminals
The Hunt: Me and the War Criminals is a book written by Carla Del Ponte, published in April 2008. According to Del Ponte she received information saying about 300 non-Albanians were kidnapped and transferred to Albania in 1999 where their organs were extracted...
that there were instances of organ trafficking
Kosovo organ theft
The Kosovo organ theft/trafficking or Serbian Organ Harvesting is an alleged atrocity of organ theft and killing of 300 ethnic Serbs during and after the Kosovo War in 1999, committed by the Kosovo Liberation Army.The first allegations appeared in the media with The Hunt: Me and the War Criminals,...
in 1999 after the end of the Kosovo War
Kosovo War
The term Kosovo War or Kosovo conflict was two sequential, and at times parallel, armed conflicts in Kosovo province, then part of FR Yugoslav Republic of Serbia; from early 1998 to 1999, there was an armed conflict initiated by the ethnic Albanian "Kosovo Liberation Army" , who sought independence...
. These allegations were dismissed by Kosovar
Kosovo
Kosovo is a region in southeastern Europe. Part of the Ottoman Empire for more than five centuries, later the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija within Serbia...
and Albania
Albania
Albania , officially known as the Republic of Albania , is a country in Southeastern Europe, in the Balkans region. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea...
n authorities. The allegations have been rejected by Kosovar authorities as fabrications while the ICTY has said "no reliable evidence had been obtained to substantiate the allegations".
Kosovo Liberation Army members were sentenced for murdering 32 non-Albanian civilians. In the same case, another 35 civilians are missing while 153 were tortured and released.
Status as terrorist group
The Yugoslav authorities, under Slobodan Milosevic, regarded the KLA a terrorist group. In February 1998, President Bill ClintonBill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
's special envoy to the Balkans, Robert Gelbard, condemned both the actions of Serb government and of the KLA, and described the KLA as, "without any questions, a terrorist group". UN resolution 1160
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1160
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1160, adopted on March 31, 1998, after noting the situation in Kosovo, the Council, acting under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter, imposed an arms embargo on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia .Some countries had suggested a comprehensive arms...
took a similar stance. These statements made Milosevic believe that he could attack the KLA without any repercussion, precipitating the March 1999 war.
But the 1997 US Department's terrorist list hadn't included the KLA. In March 1998, just one month later Gerbald had to modify his statements to say that KLA had not been classified legally by the U.S. government as a terrorist group, and the US government approached the KLA leaders to make them interlocutors with the Serbs. A Wall Street Journal article claimed later that the US government had removed in February 1998 the KLA from the list of terrorist organizations,, a removal that has never been confirmed. France didn't delist the KLA until late 1998, after strong US and UK lobbying. KLA is still present in the MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base
MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base
The MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base was an online portal containing information on terrorist incidents, leaders, groups, and related court cases. The TKB ceased operations on 31 March 2008. TKB was sponsored by the National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism , a non-profit...
list of terrorist groups, and is listed as an inactive terrorist organization by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism
National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism
The National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism is a counter-terrorism research center based at the University of Maryland, College Park. It is a Homeland Security Center of Excellence. It informs decisions on how to disrupt terrorists and terrorist groups, while...
from the Homeland Security
Homeland security
Homeland security is an umbrella term for security efforts to protect states against terrorist activity. Specifically, is a concerted national effort to prevent terrorist attacks within the U.S., reduce America’s vulnerability to terrorism, and minimize the damage and recover from attacks that do...
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During the war, the KLA troops collaborated with the NATO troops, and they were qualified by the NATO as "freedom fighters". In late 1999 the KLA was disbanded and its members entered the Kosovo Protection Corps
Kosovo Protection Corps
The Kosovo Protection Corps was a civilian emergency services organisation in Kosovo active from 1999 to 2009.The KPC was created on September 21, 1999 through the promulgation of UNMIK Regulation 1999/8 and the agreement of a "Statement of Principles" on the KPC's permitted role in Kosovo...
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See also
- Kosovo Protection CorpsKosovo Protection CorpsThe Kosovo Protection Corps was a civilian emergency services organisation in Kosovo active from 1999 to 2009.The KPC was created on September 21, 1999 through the promulgation of UNMIK Regulation 1999/8 and the agreement of a "Statement of Principles" on the KPC's permitted role in Kosovo...
- Military of Kosovo
- Kosovo Police ServiceKosovo Police ServiceKosovo Police is the police law enforcement agency of the Republic of Kosovo.It was created in 1999 in the aftermath of the Kosovo War and subsequent withdrawal of the Yugoslav armed forces from Kosovo....
- KFOR
- Armed Forces of the Republic of Kosova
- Albanian Armed Forces
- Kosovo WarKosovo WarThe term Kosovo War or Kosovo conflict was two sequential, and at times parallel, armed conflicts in Kosovo province, then part of FR Yugoslav Republic of Serbia; from early 1998 to 1999, there was an armed conflict initiated by the ethnic Albanian "Kosovo Liberation Army" , who sought independence...
- Strategic Bombardment in the Kosovo War
- Operation HorseshoeOperation HorseshoeOperation Horseshoe is a name attributed to a large-scale antiterrorism campaign which during the NATO bombing escalated to ethnic cleansing of Kosovo Albanians carried out by Serbian Police and Yugoslav Army during the Kosovo War....
General references
- "KLA Action Fuelled NATO Victory", Jane's Defence WeeklyJane's Defence WeeklyJane's Defence Weekly is a weekly magazine reporting on military and corporate affairs, edited by Peter Felstead. It is one of a number of military-related publications named after John F. T. Jane, an Englishman who first published Jane's All the World's Fighting Ships in 1898...
, 16 June 1999 - "The KLA: Braced to Defend and Control", Jane's Intelligence ReviewJane's Intelligence ReviewJane's Intelligence Review is a monthly journal on military intelligence published by Jane's Information Group . Its coverage includes international security issues, ongoing conflicts, organized crime, and weapons proliferation....
, 1 April 1999 - "Kosovo's Ceasefire Crumbles As Serb Military Retaliates", Jane's Intelligence Review, 1 February 1999
- "Another Balkan Bloodbath? Part Two", Jane's Intelligence Review, 1 March 1998
- "Albanians Attack Serb Targets", Jane's Defence Weekly, 4 September 1996
- "The Kosovo Liberation Army and the Future of Kosovo", James H. Anderson and James Phillips, 13 May 1999, Heritage Foundation, Heritage Foundation (Washington, USA)
External links
- The KLA: braced to defend and control Jane's Information GroupJane's Information GroupJane's Information Group is a publishing company specializing in transportation and military topics.-History:It was founded by Fred T...
- Kosovo's Army in Waiting TIME magazineTime (magazine)Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
- Intelligence Resources page on KLA Federation of American ScientistsFederation of American ScientistsThe Federation of American Scientists is a nonpartisan, 501 organization intent on using science and scientific analysis to attempt make the world more secure. FAS was founded in 1945 by scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project to develop the first atomic bombs...
- KLA-NATO Demilitarization and transformation agreement.
- IISSInternational Institute for Strategic StudiesThe International Institute for Strategic Studies is a British research institute in the area of international affairs. It describes itself as "the world’s leading authority on political-military conflict"...
: "The Kosovo Liberation Army" – Volume 4, Issue 7 – August 1998 - Kosova Press Ex-KLA News Agency, now close to the Democratic Party of KosovoDemocratic Party of KosovoThe Democratic Party of Kosovo is the largest political party in Kosovo . It is a social democratic party and the main leftist party in Kosovo....
- Government of Serbia (2003): White Book on KLA (Part 1, Part 2)