Kosovo War
The Kosovo War lasted from the 28th of February 1998 until the 11th of June 1999, yet one of its first tremors came from a dispute over a university canteen. In 1981, students at the University of Pristina protested over the long queues for their meals. The protest escalated quickly. By late March and early April it had spread, bringing mass demonstrations to several towns across Kosovo. Yugoslavia's presidency proclaimed a state of emergency and sent in riot police and the army. Casualties were numerous.
A quarrel over canteen queues that ends with soldiers on the streets raises the questions this documentary sets out to answer. Why did Kosovo, a province inside a socialist federation, keep returning to confrontation? Who were the fighters of the Kosovo Liberation Army, whom one side called terrorists and the other called freedom fighters? Why did NATO decide to bomb a European country, and why do scholars still argue over whether that decision was lawful, justified, or both? And what did the fighting leave behind for the people who lived through it?
In 1877 and 1878, Muslim Albanians living in the Sanjak of Niš were quickly expelled once the Ottomans lost control of the region. Modern estimates put the number of refugees between 50,000 and 130,000. Some of those who settled in Kosovo struck back at the local Serb population. Earlier, between 1830 and 1876, as many as 150,000 Albanians had also been forced out of the Principality of Serbia. By 1901 the hostility had hardened into massacres of Serbs in Ibarski Kolašin. The attackers used weapons that were never handed back to the Ottomans after the Greco-Turkish War of 1897.
The Balkan Wars brought something far worse. An Albanian revolt in 1912 persuaded the Ottoman Empire to accept an Albanian quasi-state, but Bulgarian, Serbian and Montenegrin troops soon drove the Ottoman forces out. In the fighting that followed, at least 50,000 Albanians were massacred in the territory of present-day Kosovo. The killers were the Serbian regular army and irregular fighters known as Komitadjis. Their aim was to alter the population statistics before the London Conference of 1912-1913 drew Albania's borders on ethnic figures. Multiple historians and contemporary accounts describe these killings as localized genocide, as extermination, or as part of a wider genocide against Muslims.
After World War I, Kosovo was absorbed into the Serb-dominated Kingdom of Yugoslavia, despite Albanian demands for union with Albania. Rebels launched the Drenica-Dukagjin Uprisings. They were crushed after the government of Fan Noli fell in Albania in December 1924 and President Zog withdrew support from the Committee for the National Defence of Kosovo. Between 1918 and 1939, Yugoslavia expelled hundreds of thousands of Albanians, encouraged mostly Serb colonists to settle, and banned Albanian language schools.
The Axis invasion of 1941 reversed the pattern. Most of Kosovo was assigned to Italian-controlled Albania, while Germany and Bulgaria held the rest. Albanian collaborators persecuted Serb and Montenegrin settlers. Thousands were killed, and between 70,000 and 100,000 were expelled or sent to concentration camps, in order to Albanianize the province. After the war, a decree by Josip Broz Tito and then a law of August 1945 made return nearly impossible for colonists who had taken land from Albanian peasants.
Tito's Yugoslavia was built from six republics: Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Serbia was the largest and most populous, so Tito diluted its weight by creating autonomous governments in Vojvodina in the north and Kosovo in the south. The region was called the Autonomous Region of Kosovo and Metohija until 1963, and from 1968 the Socialist Autonomous Province of Kosovo.
From 1948 to 1963, Aleksandar Ranković and his secret police, the UDBA, carried out a brutal crackdown on Albanian nationalists. A state of emergency was declared in 1955 to quell unrest that was said to have been stirred by terror groups from Albania. Ranković was ousted in 1966, and Tito's League of Communists then handed more powers to the republics and tried to improve conditions in Kosovo.
In November 1968, large demonstrations followed Albanian demands for separate republics in Kosovo and Macedonia. Yugoslav forces put them down. Students and intellectuals also pushed for an Albanian-language university. The University of Pristina became an independent institution in 1970, after years as an outpost of the University of Belgrade. An agreement with Albania itself supplied the textbooks that Yugoslavia lacked. In 1969, the Serbian Orthodox Church ordered its clergy to compile data on the problems of Serbs in Kosovo, hoping to pressure Belgrade into doing more.
The constitution of 1974 gave Kosovo, along with Vojvodina, the status of a province with many of the powers of a republic. It received a seat on the federal presidency and its own assembly, police force and national bank. This stratified both communities and stirred Serb fears that Kosovo might secede. Student demonstrations continued through the 1970s, and many members of the Albanian National Liberation Movement, including Adem Demaçi, were imprisoned. Tito died on the 4th of May 1980, and his death opened a long period of instability, worsened by economic crisis and nationalist unrest.
Some 4,000 Serbs were reported to have moved from Kosovo to central Serbia in 1981, after riots that left several Serbs dead and Serbian Orthodox buildings and graveyards desecrated. Serbia answered with a plan to reduce Albanian power in the province. It also ran a propaganda campaign claiming that Serbs were being pushed out by the growing Albanian population rather than by a bad economy. Yugoslav police dismantled 33 nationalist formations, sentenced about 280 people, and seized arms caches and propaganda material.
Albanian leaders in Kosovo argued that Serbs were leaving mainly because of poverty. The figures supported part of that claim. Kosovo was the poorest part of Yugoslavia, with an average income per head of $795 against a national average of $2,635. Both Albanians and Serbs tended to favour their own countrymen when hiring, and there were too few jobs for the population. Because of its poverty, Kosovo received substantial development money from the federation, which led to quarrels among the republics over how much it got and how it was spent.
In February 1982, a group of priests from Serbia proper petitioned their bishops. They asked why the Serbian Church was silent about what they called destruction, arson and sacrilege at the holy shrines of Kosovo. In 1985, two Albanian farmers were falsely accused in the Đorđe Martinović incident, which became a cause célèbre in Serbian politics and fed hatred toward Albanians. In 1987, Aziz Kelmendi, an ethnic Albanian conscript in the Yugoslav Army, shot four fellow soldiers dead in their barracks. Only one of the victims was an ethnic Serb. Serbian media blamed Albanian nationalism, and Yugoslavia sent 400 federal police officers to Kosovo.
Against that background, the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts surveyed Serbs who had left Kosovo in 1985 and 1986. It concluded that a considerable number had gone under pressure from Albanians. A draft document built on these findings leaked in September 1986 and became known as the SANU Memorandum. It described Kosovo's Serbs as victims of "physical, political, legal and cultural genocide" in an "open and total war" under way since the spring of 1981. It called Kosovo's status in 1986 a worse historical defeat than anything since liberation from the Ottomans in 1804. It claimed that 200,000 Serbs had left the province in the previous twenty years.
The document also warned that Serbia "must not be passive and wait and see what the others will say, as it has done so often in the past." Reactions split along ethnic lines and within the Serbs themselves. Albanians read it as a call for Serbian supremacy and insisted the emigrants had left for economic reasons. Slovenes and Croats saw a threat in the call for a more assertive Serbia. Many Serbs welcomed it, while the Communist old guard attacked it. One of those who denounced it was the Serbian Communist Party official Slobodan Milošević.
In April 1987, Serbian President Ivan Stambolić and Milošević travelled to Kosovo intending to calm tensions. Outside the hall in Kosovo Polje where Milošević was to speak, a Serb nationalist crowd tried to break through the police cordon. After the scuffle, the crowd chanted that Albanian policemen were beating them. Milošević walked out of the building and told them, "No one will beat you again." He urged them to resist Albanian pressure to leave Kosovo. That speech marked the start of his use of nationalism to gain power, and in May 1989 he was appointed President of the Presidency of Serbia.
In March 1989, Milošević announced an "anti-bureaucratic revolution" in Kosovo and Vojvodina that curtailed their autonomy. A curfew and a state of emergency followed in Kosovo after violent demonstrations, which killed 24 people, including two policemen. Milošević and his government insisted the changes were needed to protect Kosovo's remaining Serbs from harassment by the Albanian majority.
On the 23rd of March 1989, the Assembly of Kosovo voted to accept Serbian constitutional amendments, although most Albanian delegates abstained. The amendments removed the independence of provincial institutions such as Kosovo's and renamed the province the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija. In February, Kosovar Albanians had demonstrated in large numbers against the proposal, emboldened by striking miners. Serbs in Belgrade protested in turn against Albanian separatism. On the 3rd of March, the Presidency of Yugoslavia had assigned responsibility for public security to the federal government. That arrangement was lifted on the 18th of April 1990, after mass Albanian demonstrations.
The summer of 1990 sharpened the confrontation. On the 26th of June, Serbian authorities barred access to the Kosovo Assembly building, citing special circumstances. On the 2nd of July, 114 of the 180 ethnic Albanian delegates gathered in front of the closed building and declared Kosovo an independent republic within Yugoslavia. Three days later, the Serbian Assembly dissolved the Kosovo Assembly and the provincial executive council, and assumed direct control. Serbia took over the main Albanian-language media and halted Albanian-language broadcasts.
Kosovar Albanians answered on the 4th of September 1990 with a 24-hour general strike that virtually shut down the province. On the 7th of September, Albanian members of the disbanded assembly promulgated a Constitution of Kosovo, and Milošević ordered the arrest of the deputies who took part. A new Serbian constitution followed on the 28th of September. In September 1991, Kosovar Albanians held an unofficial referendum and voted overwhelmingly for independence. On the 24th of May 1992 they held unofficial elections and chose Ibrahim Rugova as president of the Republic of Kosovo.
The Republic of Kosova began building parallel institutions, which Serbia did not recognise. Serbian security structures grew considerably in Kosovo, and the province lived under constant curfews. Hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanians were dismissed from government and state-run institutions. The newspaper Rilindja, the main Albanian-language daily, was suspended on the 5th of August 1991, when the Serbian Assembly declared its journalism unconstitutional.
Schools became a front line. By 1990, most Albanian schools were closed, and the Serbian government required Albanian teachers to sign loyalty oaths to keep their jobs. Signing meant recognising Serbia, not the Republic of Kosova, as their country, and the vast majority refused. By 1991, all Albanian schoolteachers and academic staff had been dismissed. The Republic of Kosova set up a parallel education system that used donated private homes as classrooms. Serbs were allowed into the University of Pristina and received preferential treatment, and the Academy of Sciences in Kosovo was abolished on Milošević's order. Albanian street names were changed to Serbian ones.
On the 26th of February 1993, United Nations Special Rapporteur Tadeusz Mazowiecki reported that police repression of Albanians had intensified since 1990. He cited the loss of basic rights, the destruction of the education system and large numbers of political dismissals of civil servants. Over seven years, 350,000 Albanians emigrated under economic and social pressure, while the regime encouraged Serb settlement. Between 1990 and 1995, 130,000 Albanians were fired or lost their homes to Serbs. Amnesty International estimated that by 1998 unemployment among Kosovar Albanians stood above 70 percent, and described the situation as economic apartheid. In 1996, the Milošević government settled 16,000 Serb refugees from Bosnia and Croatia in Kosovo, sometimes against their will.
On the 22nd of April 1996, four attacks on Serbian security personnel were carried out almost simultaneously in different parts of Kosovo. A hitherto unknown organisation, the Kosovo Liberation Army, claimed responsibility. Its appearance followed years of passive resistance under Ibrahim Rugova, a policy that had kept Kosovo peaceful through the wars in Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia. That peace came at the price of rising frustration among Albanians. The KLA, formed in the early 1990s, launched its first campaign in 1995, after Kosovo was left out of the Dayton Agreement and peaceful resistance had failed to put the province on the international agenda. In June 1996 it claimed sabotage of Kosovo police stations.
What the KLA wanted was a puzzle at first. Initially its aim seemed to be simply ending repression by the Yugoslav authorities. Its goals also included a Greater Albania, a state reaching into Macedonia, Montenegro and southern Serbia. In July 1998, KLA spokesman Jakup Krasniqi told Der Spiegel that the aim was the unification of all Albanian-inhabited lands. Sulejman Selimi, general commander in 1998-1999, said that European powers had divided one Albanian nation among several states after World War I. He added, "We are not just a liberation army for Kosovo." Where Rugova promised to uphold Serb minority rights, Selimi said that "Serbs who have blood on their hands would have to leave Kosovo."
The weapons came from an unexpected direction. In early 1997, Albania collapsed into chaos after the fall of President Sali Berisha. Criminal gangs looted Albanian Armed Forces stockpiles with impunity, and much of the hardware ended up in western Kosovo. The Kosovo Albanian diaspora supplied money and material as well. Bujar Bukoshi, the shadow prime minister in exile in Zürich, created a rival force called FARK, the Armed Forces of the Republic of Kosova. It later merged into the KLA.
The label attached to the KLA became a diplomatic problem of its own. Yugoslavia's government called the fighters terrorists and insurgents who attacked police and civilians indiscriminately. Most Albanians saw freedom fighters. On the 23rd of February 1998, United States Special Envoy Robert Gelbard said in Pristina that the KLA was "without any question a terrorist group." He later told a congressional committee that the group had committed terrorist acts but had not been legally classified as a terrorist organisation. His Pristina remarks have been read as an unwitting green light for the Serbian crackdown that followed within a week.
The crackdown centred on the Drenica valley and the compound of Adem Jashari in Prekaz. On the 22nd of January 1998, Yugoslav security forces attacked the compound and were repelled. Thousands of Jashari's supporters drove them from the village the next day. Days after Gelbard's remarks, Serbian police hit back in the Likošane area and pursued fighters to Čirez. Four Serbian policemen, 16 Albanian fighters and 26 civilians died. On the 5th of March 1998, a much larger assault on the Jashari compound killed 60 Albanians. Eighteen were women and ten were under sixteen. The massacre drew condemnation from western capitals, and Madeleine Albright said that "this crisis is not an internal affair of the FRY."
The KLA wanted to link its Drenica stronghold to its base in Albania proper, and that goal shaped the early months. On the 24th of March, Yugoslav forces surrounded the village of Glodjane and attacked a rebel compound. Despite superior firepower, they failed to destroy the KLA unit, and the village became one of the strongest centres of resistance. By the summer the KLA held much of the area around Deçan. It captured Lapušnik, obstructing the Priština-Peć motorway, and later surrounded Peć and Ðakovica. It set up an interim capital in Mališevo and seized the Belaćevac coal pits, which threatened regional energy supplies.
International attention rose with a photograph. After meeting Milošević in Belgrade on the 15th of May, the only meeting between him and Rugova, special envoy Richard Holbrooke visited the border areas hit by the fighting in early June. He was famously photographed with the KLA. The pictures signalled to the KLA and its sympathisers that the United States was decisively backing the Albanian population in Kosovo. Meanwhile, Milošević reached an arrangement with Boris Yeltsin, and the Kosovo Diplomatic Observer Mission began work in early July 1998.
The tide turned in mid-July, when the KLA captured Orahovac. Two nearby villages, Retimlije and Opteruša, were taken on the 17th of July, and the Orthodox monastery of Zočište was looted and torched. A series of Yugoslav counter-offensives followed through August and September. In late September, Yugoslav forces made a determined effort to clear the KLA from northern and central Kosovo and the Drenica valley. On the 28th of September, the observer mission found the mutilated bodies of a family outside Gornje Obrinje. The image of a bloodied child's doll, and streams of displaced people, rallied the international community to act.
Serb forces had their own troubles with morale. Intelligence surveys found that many soldiers disagreed with their comrades' actions. One tank commander reported, "for the entire time I was in Kosovo, I never saw an enemy soldier and my unit was never once involved in firing at enemy targets." He added, "I am ashamed." Yet when Yugoslav units later retreated after NATO intervention, they looked combat effective, with high morale and large holdings of undamaged equipment.
More than 230,000 people had been driven from their homes when the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1199 on the 23rd of September 1998. Acting under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, the Council demanded that all parties cease hostilities and maintain a ceasefire. The next day, the North Atlantic Council of NATO issued an activation warning for both a limited air option and a phased air campaign. About 250,000 Albanians were displaced, and 30,000 of them were out in the woods without warm clothing or shelter, with winter approaching. Christopher Hill, US Ambassador to Macedonia, ran shuttle diplomacy between an Albanian delegation led by Rugova and the Yugoslav and Serbian authorities.
On the 13th of October 1998, the North Atlantic Council issued activation orders for air strikes to begin in about 96 hours. Richard Holbrooke went to Belgrade hoping for a deal with Milošević. On the 15th of October, a ceasefire agreement created the Kosovo Verification Mission, a large contingent of unarmed OSCE monitors known as verifiers. Their inadequacy showed from the start. Their brightly coloured vehicles earned them the nickname "clockwork oranges." Fighting resumed in December after both sides broke the ceasefire, and it culminated in the killing of Zvonko Bojanić, the Serb mayor of Kosovo Polje.
On the 15th of January 1999, monitors led by Head of Mission William G. Walker, together with foreign news correspondents, found the bodies of 45 Kosovan Albanians at Račak. Yugoslavia denied that a massacre took place. The Western countries and the UN Security Council condemned it at once, and it later became the basis for one of the war crimes charges against Milošević and his top officials. The massacre was the turning point. NATO concluded that only a military peacekeeping force under its auspices could forcibly restrain both sides.
On the 30th of January 1999, the Contact Group issued "non-negotiable principles" known as "Status Quo Plus." This meant restoring Kosovo's pre-1990 autonomy within Serbia, plus democracy and international supervision. NATO's own statement that day let Secretary General Javier Solana authorise air strikes. It carried a coded threat for Albanians too, since any decision would depend on the actions of the Kosovo Albanian leadership and all Kosovo Albanian armed elements.
The Rambouillet talks opened on the 6th of February 1999 at the Château de Rambouillet outside Paris. Milošević stayed in Belgrade, and the Yugoslav delegation was led by Serbian president Milan Milutinović. At Dayton in 1995, by contrast, Milošević had negotiated in person. Kosovo's Serbian Orthodox bishop Artemije travelled to Rambouillet to protest that the delegation was wholly unrepresentative. Speculation about a war crimes indictment was rife, so fear of arrest may have kept Milošević away.
The first phase went well. On the 23rd of February, the Contact Group co-chairmen announced a consensus on substantial autonomy for Kosovo, with free and fair elections and a fair judicial system. Serbs agreed to an autonomous government, free elections and the release of all political prisoners, but the West also insisted on NATO troops. The Yugoslavs then substituted a drastically revised text that even Russia found unacceptable. It deleted the implementation measures, the chapter on humanitarian assistance and reconstruction, and nearly all international oversight.
On the 18th of March 1999, the Albanian, US and British delegations signed what became known as the Rambouillet Accords. The Yugoslav and Russian delegations refused. The accords provided for NATO administration of Kosovo as an autonomous province within Yugoslavia, with a force of 30,000 NATO troops. NATO troops would have unhindered passage across Yugoslav territory and immunity from Yugoslav law. The accords would have allowed a Yugoslav army presence of 1,500 troops for border monitoring, backed by up to 1,000 for command and support, plus 2,500 ordinary police and 3,000 local police.
Yugoslavia cited Appendix B, the military annex, as an unacceptable violation of its sovereignty. Yet its provisions were essentially the same as those applied to Bosnia for the SFOR mission after Dayton. The sides never discussed the annex in detail, because they disagreed on more fundamental points. The Serb side rejected any NATO troop presence replacing its security forces and preferred unarmed UN observers. OSCE monitors withdrew on the 22nd of March. The next day, the Serbian assembly accepted autonomy in principle and the non-military aspects, but rejected NATO troops.
In a 2009 judgement on six former Serb leaders, the ICTY called the causes of the breakdown complex. It said international negotiators "did not take an entirely even-handed approach" and "tended to favour the Kosovo Albanians." The tribunal also recorded a witness account that, on the 14th of April 1999, President Bill Clinton told Serbian-American representatives that the referendum provision "went too far." He reportedly added that, in Milošević's shoes, he probably would not have signed the draft either.
At 21:30 UTC on the 23rd of March 1999, Richard Holbrooke returned to Brussels and announced that the peace talks had failed. Hours earlier, Yugoslavia had declared a state of emergency on national television and begun a huge mobilisation. At 22:17 UTC, Javier Solana told General Wesley Clark, the Supreme Allied Commander Europe, to initiate air operations. At 19:00 UTC on the 24th of March, the bombing began.
Up to 1,000 aircraft took part, operating mainly from bases in Italy and from carriers in the Adriatic. Tomahawk cruise missiles fired from aircraft, ships and submarines were used extensively. Every NATO member except Greece took part to some degree. Over ten weeks, NATO aircraft flew more than 38,000 combat missions. For the German Air Force it was only the second conflict since World War II, after Bosnia. NATO's spokesman summed up the aim as "Serbs out, peacekeepers in, refugees back."
The campaign started badly. Bad weather hindered many early sorties, and the plan targeted air defences and high-value military sites. NATO had seriously underestimated Milošević's will to resist, and few in Brussels expected the campaign to last more than a few days. The first bombardment did not match the intensity of the bombing of Baghdad in 1991. NATO shifted increasingly to Yugoslav units on the ground, hitting individual tanks and artillery pieces while continuing strategic bombing. Politics constrained all of it, because every target needed approval from all nineteen member states. Montenegro was bombed several times, but NATO eventually stopped, to prop up its anti-Milošević leader, Milo Đukanović.
Mistakes became part of the story. At the start of May, a NATO aircraft attacked an Albanian refugee convoy, believing it to be Yugoslav military, and killed around fifty people. NATO admitted the error five days later, and Yugoslavia accused it of deliberate attack. An ICTY report concluded that civilians were not deliberately attacked. It found that neither aircrew nor commanders showed the recklessness needed for criminal charges.
On the 7th of May, NATO bombs hit the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade and killed three Chinese journalists, outraging Chinese public opinion. The United States and NATO apologised, blaming an outdated CIA map. A joint report by The Observer in Britain and Politiken in Denmark claimed the embassy was hit intentionally because it relayed Yugoslav army radio signals. The ICTY traced the failure to the land navigation techniques of an intelligence officer. In May, the Yugoslav government blamed NATO bombing for as many as 95 civilian deaths at Dubrava prison. Human Rights Watch concluded that at least nineteen ethnic Albanian prisoners died in the bombing. It said probably more than 70 were killed by Serbian forces in the following days. The headquarters of RTS, Serbian public radio and television, was struck on the 23rd of April, killing at least fourteen people.
By the start of April, the conflict seemed little closer to resolution. NATO countries began to consider ground operations seriously. British prime minister Tony Blair was a strong advocate, and his stance caused some alarm in Washington, since the United States would make the largest contribution. Clinton was extremely reluctant to commit US ground forces. He authorised a CIA operation to look at ways of destabilising the Yugoslav government without training KLA troops. Blair ordered 50,000 British soldiers, most of the available British Army, to be made ready.
Finnish and Russian negotiators kept urging Milošević to back down. He finally accepted that Russia would not intervene to defend Yugoslavia, whatever Moscow's rhetoric against NATO. On the 3rd of June 1999, he accepted an international peace plan that allowed a UN-headed military presence incorporating NATO troops. The national parliament adopted the proposal in a debate where delegates came close to fistfights.
Norwegian special forces from Forsvarets Spesialkommando and soldiers of the British SAS 22 Regiment were the first NATO troops into Pristina on the 12th of June 1999. They did not find the city empty of rivals. Russian troops had arrived at Pristina International Airport first, travelling from Bosnia and Herzegovina without prior coordination with NATO. The Russians had expected an independent sector of Kosovo and were unhappy to learn they would serve under NATO command.
At the airport, Wesley Clark wanted NATO vehicles to block the runways and stop Russian reinforcement. KFOR commander Lieutenant General Mike Jackson refused. In a 2010 interview, James Blunt, whose unit had been assigned to secure Pristina, recalled a stand-off in which Clark's provisional orders to overpower the Russians were questioned and then rejected. Jackson's line was, "I'm not having my soldiers responsible for starting World War III." A deal followed under which Russian forces served as a unit of KFOR outside the NATO command structure.
The NATO-led Kosovo Force numbered 30,000 soldiers. It was based on the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps headquarters under Jackson and drew on British, French, German, Italian and United States brigades. KFOR had prepared for combat but met no resistance, and its mission ended up as peacekeeping. US soldiers were greeted by Albanians cheering and throwing flowers. The Kumanovo Agreement, signed on the 9th of June, had committed Yugoslav and Serb forces to withdraw. Three US soldiers from the Initial Entry Force died in accidents.
The Kosovo Liberation Army disbanded soon after the war. Some members went on to fight for the UÇPMB in the Preševo Valley. Others joined the National Liberation Army or the Albanian National Army during the ethnic conflict in Macedonia. Others formed the Kosovo Police. About 200,000 Serbs, Romani and other non-Albanians fled Kosovo, and many who remained suffered abuse.
The human toll is hard to fix. A postwar list recorded over 13,500 people killed or missing during the two years of conflict. Yugoslav and Serb forces displaced between 1.2 million and 1.45 million Kosovo Albanians. The NATO bombing caused at least 488 Yugoslav civilian deaths, including many Kosovar refugees. In 2001, a UN-administered Supreme Court in Kosovo found a systematic campaign of terror against the Albanian population, including murders, rapes, arsons and severe maltreatment. It found Yugoslav troops had tried to force Albanians out, not to eradicate them, so it was not genocide. The ICTY convicted six Serb or Yugoslav officials and one Albanian commander of war crimes.
The legal argument was never settled. Because the UN Security Council had not approved the bombing, many legal scholars called it illegal but legitimate. The Independent International Commission on Kosovo reached that very conclusion in its Kosovo Report. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan was reported to accept that force can be legitimate in pursuit of peace, though he stressed that the Council should have been involved. Michael Ignatieff called the intervention a justifiable response to ethnic cleansing, not its cause.
Critics pointed to timing and consequences. Some saw the campaign as a diversion from the Monica Lewinsky scandal, noting that bombing coverage replaced scandal coverage in US news. Herbert Foerstel argued that before the bombing the KLA was not waging a widespread war and that deaths soared afterward. An OSCE report noted "the pattern of the expulsions and the vast increase in lootings, killings, rape, kidnappings and pillage once the NATO air war began on March 24." Noam Chomsky argued that the Račak massacre, at 45 deaths, was small beside the atrocities that followed. Russia brought a draft resolution to the Security Council calling the use of force a flagrant violation of the UN Charter. China, Namibia and Russia voted for it, the other members against, and it failed.
Numbers were contested even during the bombing. Defense Secretary William Cohen claimed that 100,000 Kosovo Albanian men of military age were missing, possibly murdered. By November 1999, only 2,108 victims had been exhumed, with about 3,000 expected, far below the 10,000 minimum civilian death figure cited by Western officials. It remained unclear how many were civilians and how many were combatants, and final casualty estimates for either side are still unavailable.
Updated
Common questions
When did the Kosovo War start and end?
The Kosovo War lasted from the 28th of February 1998 until the 11th of June 1999. The NATO bombing campaign ran from the 24th of March 1999, and NATO peacekeepers began entering Kosovo on the 12th of June 1999.
Who fought in the Kosovo War?
The Kosovo War was fought between forces of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Kosovo Liberation Army, an Albanian separatist militia. NATO joined with an air campaign that began on the 24th of March 1999.
Why did NATO bomb Yugoslavia in the Kosovo War?
NATO bombed Yugoslavia after the Rambouillet talks failed and the campaign of expulsions against Kosovar Albanians intensified. Its spokesman summed up the aim as "Serbs out, peacekeepers in, refugees back."
What was the Rambouillet Accords in the Kosovo War?
The Rambouillet Accords were a peace plan signed on the 18th of March 1999 by the Albanian, US and British delegations. They called for NATO administration of Kosovo as an autonomous province within Yugoslavia and a 30,000-strong NATO force. The Yugoslav and Russian delegations refused to sign.
What was the Kosovo Liberation Army in the Kosovo War?
The Kosovo Liberation Army was an Albanian militia formed in the early 1990s, which claimed its first attacks on Serbian security personnel on the 22nd of April 1996. Yugoslavia called its fighters terrorists, while most Albanians saw them as freedom fighters.
Was the Kosovo War a genocide?
In 2001, a UN-administered Supreme Court in Kosovo found a systematic campaign of terror against the Albanian population, but ruled it was not genocide. It found Yugoslav troops tried to force Albanians out of Kosovo, not to eradicate them.
How many people died or were displaced in the Kosovo War?
A postwar list recorded over 13,500 people killed or missing during the two-year conflict. Yugoslav and Serb forces displaced between 1.2 million and 1.45 million Kosovo Albanians.
All sources
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- 42BookThe Balkans: A Post-Communist HistoryRobert Bideleux et al. — Routledge — 2006
- 43BookThe Oxford Companion to American Military HistoryJohn Whiteclay Chambers II — Oxford University Press — 1999
- 44BookTaking Off: A Century of Manned FlightJonathan Coopersmith et al. — American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics — 2003
- 45NewsThe limits of air powerAndrew Cockburn — 3 April 2011
- 46BookRussian Military Intelligence (GRU) Daily Reports on the Iraq WarZafarul-Islam Khan — Pharos — August 22, 2008
- 50Tribunal focuses on Serbia's Kosovo war - Europe - International Herald TribuneMarlise Simons — 10 July 2006
- 51BookWarfare and armed conflicts : A statistical encyclopedia of casualty and other figures, 1494-2007Micheal Clodfelter — McFarland, Incorporated, Publishers — 2008
- 52BookThe Serbs: History, Myth and the Destruction of YugoslaviaTim Judah — Yale University Press — 1997
- 53BookKosovo/Kosova: As Seen
- 58BookViolence After War: Explaining Instability in Post-Conflict StatesMichael J. Boyle — Johns Hopkins University Press — 2014
- 59BookThe Kosovo ReportIndependent International Commission on Kosovo — Oxford University Press — 2000
- 60BookInternational Conflict: Logic and EvidenceStephen L. Quackenbush — Sage — 2015
- 61Weymouth, Tony. The Kosovo Crisis: The Last American War in Europe?. United Kingdom: Reuters, 2001.
- 62JournalWhy Kosovar Albanians Took Up Arms against the Serbian Regime: The Genesis and Expansion of the UÇK in KosovoKeiichi Kubo — 2010-08-09
- 64Chronology for Kosovo Albanians in YugoslaviaUnited Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
- 65Under Orders: War Crimes in Kosovo (March–June 1999)Human Rights Watch — 12 June 1999
- 66BookThe SerbsJudah — Yale University Press — 2009
- 68NewsEndgame in Kosovo9 December 2007
- 70Kosovo war chronologyHuman Rights Watch
- 71NewsThe Balkan wars: Reshaping the map of south-eastern Europe2012-11-09
- 72JournalThe Influence of Operation Allied Force on the Development of the jus ad bellumSteven Haines — Oxford University Press — May 2009
- 73The Civilian DeathsHuman Rights Watch — February 2000
- 74Case Studies of Civilian DeathsHuman Rights Watch — February 2000
- 76NATO: We Mistakenly Bombed Refugees15 April 1999
- 77NewsKosovo assault 'was not genocide'BBC — 7 September 2011
- 78List of Kosovo War Victims Published10 December 2014
- 79Kosovo / Kosova: As Seen, As ToldOSCE — 5 November 1999
- 80Serbia home to highest number of refugees and IDPs in EuropeB92 — 20 June 2010
- 82NewsKosovo one year on16 March 2000
- 83NewsKLA veterans linked to latest bout of violence in MacedoniaJustin Huggler — 12 March 2001
- 84Kosovo Liberation Army: the inside story of an insurgency, by Henry H. Perritt
- 85JournalViolence and its Impact on Loyalty and Identity Formation in Late Ottoman Kosovo: Muslims and Christians in a Period of Reform and TransformationEva Anne Frantz — 2009
- 86JournalOrientalism and Nation: Jews and Muslims as Alterity in Southeastern Europe in the Age of Nation-States, 1878–1941Dietmar Müller — 2009
- 87JournalLes raisons de la manière de l'exode des refugies albanais du territoire du sandjak de Nish a Kosove (1878–1878) The reasons for the manner of the exodus of Albanian refugees from the territory of the Sanjak of Nish to Kosovo (1878–1878)Emin Pllana — 1985
- 88JournalNënte Dokumente angleze mbi Lidhjen Shqiptare të Prizrenit (1878–1880) Nine English documents about the League of Prizren (1878–1880)Skënder Rizaj — 1981
- 89JournalSeeing the Albanians through Serbian eyes: The Inventors of the Tradition of Intolerance and their Critics, 1804–1939Djordje Stefanović — 2005
- 90BookMarrëdhëniet shqiptare--serbo-malazeze (1830-1878)Sadulla Brestovci — 1983
- 91BookNation Failure, Ethnic Elites, and Balance of Power: The International Administration of KosovaShinasi Rama — Springer — 2019
- 92BookMother Teresa: The Saint and Her NationGëzim Alpion — Bloomsbury — 2021
- 93BookThe Albanian National AwakeningStavro Skendi — Princeton University Press — 2015
- 94BookThe lights that failed : European international history, 1919–1933Zara Steiner — Oxford University Press — 2005
- 95BookPolitical Parties of Eastern Europe: A Guide to Politics in the Post-Communist EraJanus Bugajski — M.E. Sharpe — 2002
- 96BookAggression Against Yugoslavia CorrespondenceFaculty of Law, University of Belgrade — 2000
- 97BookKosovo: A Documentary History from the Balkan Wars to World War IIRobert Elsie et al. — I.B.Tauris & Co. Ltd — 2018
- 98BookThe Crisis of Genocide. Volume I: Devastation: The European Rimlands 1912–1938Mark Levene — Oxford University Press — 2013
- 99BookKosovo and Serbia: Contested Options and Shared ConsequencesArben Qirezi — University of Pittsburgh Press — 2017
- 100Albania's Golgotha: indictments of the exterminators of the Albanian peopleLeo Freundlich — Juka Pub. Co. — 1 January 1998
- 101BookGenocide at the Dawn of the Twenty-First Century: Rwanda, Bosnia, Kosovo, and DarfurDale C. Tatum — Palgrave Macmillan — 2010
- 103BookThat was YugoslaviaOst-Dienst — 1991
- 104BookSocial currents in Eastern Europe: The sources and consequences of the great transformationSabrina P. Ramet — Duke University Press — 1995
- 105BookUnderstanding the War in KosovoFlorian Bieber et al. — Routledge — 2004
- 106BookThe Three Yugoslavias: State-building and Legitimation, 1918–2005Sabrina P. Ramet — Indiana University Press — 2006
- 107BookThe Muslim-Croat Civil War in Bosnia: A Military History, 1992–1994Charles R. Schrader — Texas A&M University Press — 2003
- 108BookThe Roots and Consequences of 20th-Century Warfare: Conflicts that Shaped the Modern WorldSpencer C. Tucker — ABC-CLIO — 2016
- 109BookTransforming Heritage in the Former Yugoslavia: Synchronous PastsSpringer — 2021
- 110BookConfronting the Yugoslav Controversies: A Scholars' InitiativePurdue University Press — 2013
- 112Kosovo conflict | Summary & Facts8 June 2023
- 114BookKosovo and International SocietyAlex J. Bellamy — Springer — 2002
- 115BookUnderstanding the War in KosovoDejan Guzina — Routledge — 2004
- 116The Associated Press – 17 October 1981 "Minorities Leaving Yugoslav Province Dominated by Albanians"
- 117BookCentral and Southeast European Politics Since 1989Sabrina P. Ramet — Cambridge University Press — 2010
- 118Financial Times (London) 5 February 1982 – "Police fail to crush resistance in Kosovo"
- 120The Migration of Serbs and Montenegrins from Kosovo and MetohijaRuza Petrovic et al. — Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts — 2000
- 122BookYugoslavia: A State that Withered AwayDejan Jović — Purdue University Press — 2009
- 123JournalThe (Un) Making of MilosevicLouis Sell — 1999
- 124BookA Guide to International Dialogue : Chronology of Kosovo 1974–2017Youth Initiative for Human Rights — 2017
- 125BookYugoslavia: A Concise HistoryLeslie Benson — Palgrave Macmillan — 2001
- 126BookThe Destruction of Yugoslavia: Tracking the Break-Up 1980–92Branka Magaš — Verso — 1993
- 127BookThe 'Yugoslav' Crisis in International LawDaniel L. Bethlehem et al. — Cambridge University Press — 1997
- 128BookThe Three Yugoslavias: State-Building and Legitimation, 1918–2005Sabrina P. Ramet — Indiana University Press — 2006
- 130BookYugoslavia Through Documents: From its creation to its dissolutionSnežana Trifunovska — Martinus Nijhoff Publishers — 1994
- 131BookA Political Chronology of EuropeEuropa Publications Limited — Psychology Press — 2001
- 132Under Orders: War Crimes in KosovoHuman Rights Watch
- 133Weymouth, Tony. The Kosovo Crisis: The Last American War in Europe?. United Kingdom: Reuters, 2001, p. 23
- 134The Kosovo Tragedy: The Human Rights Dimensions, p. 116
- 136BookKosovo Liberation Army: The Inside Story of an InsurgencyHenry H. Perritt — University of Illinois Press — 2010
- 137BookThe Ashgate Research Companion to SecessionProfessor Peter Radan et al. — Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. — 28 April 2013
- 138BookLiberating Kosovo: Coercive Diplomacy and U. S. InterventionBelfer Center for Science and International Affairs — 2012
- 139JournalPan-Albanianism: How big a threat to Balkan stability?25 February 2004
- 140NewsSerbs Pull Out of Talks on Bosnia to Protest Warning on KosovoAlan Cowell — 1999-08-12
- 141The Threat Posed by the Convergence of Organized Crime, Drugs Trafficking and Terrorismwritten Testimony of Ralf Mutschke Assistant Director, Criminal Intelligence Directorate International Criminal Police Organization – Interpol General Secretariat before a hearing of the Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime — United States House Judiciary Committee — 2000-12-13
- 142JournalPivotal Deterrence and the Kosovo War: Why the Holbrooke Agreement FailedTimothy W. Crawford — 2001
- 143NewsThe KLA – terrorists or freedom fighters?Nened Sebak — BBC — 1998-06-28
- 144The Kosovo Liberation Army: Does Clinton Policy Support Group with Terror, Drug Ties?United States Senate, Republican Policy Committee — 1999-03-31
- 145BookBosnian Genocide: The Essential Reference GuideABC-CLIO — 2016
- 146Kosovo Chronology: From 1997 to the end of the conflictBritish Parliament — June 1999
- 148Kosovo War Crimes ChronologyHuman Rights Watch
- 149Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, Statement at the Contact Group Ministerial on KosovoU.S. Department of State — 1998-03-09
- 150Ramush HaradinajStacy Sullivan — IWPR — 2005-03-11
- 15322 vjet nga Beteja e BaballoqitKallxo — 21 April 2020
- 155Çadraku : Beteja e Gradishit, beteja e parë frontale e AnadrinisëGazeta Papirus — 2022-05-14
- 156BookOteta zemlja: Kosovo i Metohija (zločini, progoni, otpori...)Mirko Čupić — Nolit — 2006
- 159NewsMission ImpossibleDouglas Waller — 1998-07-06
- 162BookHandbook of Ethnic Conflict: International PerspectivesSpringer Science and Business Media — 2012
- 163BookThe Serbs: History, Myth, and the Destruction of YugoslaviaTim Judah — Yale University Press — 2000
- 164BookDisjointed War: Military Operations in Kosovo, 1999Nardulli et al.
- 167of 9 June 1998. Blocking Property of the Governments of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro), the Republic of Serbia, and the Republic of Montenegro, and Prohibiting New Investme
- 169Press releaseStatement by the Secretary General following the ACTWARN decisionNATO — 24 September 1998
- 170Press releaseStatement to the Press by the Secretary General Following Decision on the ACTORDNATO — 13 October 1998
- 171Operation Allied ForceNATO
- 172Serb Troops Digging In To Battle Kosovo RebelsPaul Watson — 1998-10-20
- 173The OSCE Kosovo Verification MissionBrigadier-General Maisonneuve
- 174NewsSerbian Mayor Slain in Kosovo; New Sweep on Rebels Ordered19 December 1998
- 175NewsRacak massacre haunts Milosevic trialJon Silverman — 14 February 2002
- 176Transcript: Amb. Walker Press Conference After Massacre in KosovoEmbassy of the United States Tel Aviv, Israel — 26 January 1999
- 177NewsPristina waits for war1999-02-03
- 178Press releaseStatement by the North Atlantic Council on KosovoNATO — 30 January 1999
- 179Contact Group Statement – Rambouillet, 23 February 1999Office of the High Representative — 23 February 1999
- 180Kosovo's open wounds, twenty years onPhilippe Descamps — March 2019
- 181International Court of Justice17 April 2009
- 182Serb tanks bombard rebel positions in Kosovo1999-03-11
- 183BookThe Kosovo TragedyWilliam G. Walker — Routledge — 2001
- 184BookConfronting the Yugoslav Controversies: A Scholars' InitiativeIngrao Charles — Purdue University Press — 2012
- 186BookConfronting the Yugoslav Controversies: A Scholars' InitiativeCharles Ingrao — Purdue University Press — 2012
- 187BookBeyond Guns and Steel: A War Termination StrategyDominic J. Caraccilo — ABC-CLIO — 2011
- 188Conclusions of Serbian parliamentGovernment of Serbia — 1999-03-24
- 189Šainović et al. (IT-05-87) Judgement: Volume 1International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia — 26 February 2009
- 191NewsNato poised to strike23 March 1999
- 192Transcript: Holbrooke statement at NATO headquarters March 23Usembassy-israel.org.il — 1999-03-23
- 193NewsNATO Mobilizes for Attack / Yugoslavia declares state of emergencyBarton Gellman — San Francisco Chronicle — 24 March 1999
- 194Press releasePress Statement by Dr. Javier Solana, Secretary General of NATONATO — 23 March 1999
- 195BookThe Kosovo Report: Conflict, International Response, Lessons LearnedIndependent International Commission on Kosovo — Oxford University Press — 2000
- 196Press releasePress Statement by Dr. Javier Solana, NATO Secretary General following the Commencement of Air OperationsNATO — 24 March 1999
- 199NewsNato bombed Chinese deliberatelyJohn Sweeney et al. — 1999-10-17
- 200Marr, Andrew; A History of Modern Britain (2008 printing); page 550
- 201NewsCIA reportedly authorized to develop ways to 'destabilize' Yugoslavian governmentWalter Rodgers et al. — CNN — 1999-05-24
- 202UCK hjalp norsk spesialstyrkeLise Åserud et al. — 1999-06-21
- 203Norway has forces in AfghanistanNina Berglund — 2002-01-08
- 204BookNorges Hemmelige Krigere / Norway's secret WarriorsTom Bakkeli — Kagge — 2007
- 205NewsMilosevic accepts peace plan, Finnish envoy saysCNN — 3 June 1999
- 206NewsThe Kosovo Peace Plan4 June 1999
- 207Press releasePress statement by NATO Secretary GeneralNATO — 10 June 1999
- 208JournalFrom Benchmarking to Final Status? Kosovo and the Problem of an International Administration's Open-Ended MandateBernhard Knoll — 2005
- 210BookNorges hemmelige krigereTom Bakkeli — Kagge — 2008
- 211Britisk og norske soldater i Pristina12 June 1999
- 212Norske elitesoldater skamroses3 March 2000
- 213Sergeant William Wright – B Company 9th Engineers (17 July 1999); Specialist Sherwood Brim – B Company 9th Engineers (17 July 1999); Private First Class Benjamin McGill – C Company 1st Battalion 26th
- 214BookSoldierJackson Mike — Transworld Publishers — 2007
- 215NewsSinger James Blunt 'prevented World War III'BBC — 14 November 2010
- 216NewsConfrontation over Pristina airportBBC — 2000-03-09
- 217Statement on Kosovo (24 March 1999)Bill Clinton — Miller Center at the University of Virginia — 2016-11-21
- 218NewsKosovo was a just war, not an imperialist dress rehearsalDavid Clark — 16 April 2009
- 219NewsBlair: 'We must act – to save thousands of innocent men, women and children'Tony Blair — 23 March 1999
- 220JournalNATO intervention in Kosovo: the legal contextAlbert Legault — Spring 2000
- 221NewsKofi Annan's delicate balanceMark Devenport — BBC — 13 April 1999
- 222The Kosovo ReportU Michigan
- 223The Kosovo crisis in an international law perspective: self-determination, territorial integrity and the NATO interventionDajena Kumbaro — NATO Office of Information and Press — 16 June 2001
- 224JournalReview Essays: Ethics, Diplomacy and Intervention in KosovoJames G. Mellon — Winter 2001
- 225NewsSouth Ossetia Isn't KosovoChristopher Hitchens — Aug 18, 2008
- 226NewsKosovo RevisitedRichard Falk — 22 March 2000
- 227NewsThe international community makes a terrible mess wherever it goesMark Tran — 1 April 2008
- 229NewsSerbia's anniversary is a timely reminderIan Bancroft — 24 March 2009
- 230BookThe New Military Humanism: Lessons from KosovoNoam Chomsky — Common Courage Press — 1999
- 231JournalThe Kosovo War: Causes and JustificationJohn A. Vasquez — Taylor & Francis, Ltd. — 2002
- 232JournalResponsibility to Peace: A Critique of R2PMary Ellen O'Connell — 2010
- 233NewsNumbers Game in KosovoPhyllis Schlafly — 1999-10-19
- 234NewsSerb killings 'exaggerated' by westJonathan Steele — 18 August 2000
- 236Deceit And Lies Over KosovoReed Irvine et al. — Accuracy in Media — 24 November 1999
- 237BookThe United States and the Security Council: Collective Security Since the Cold WarBrian Frederking — Routledge — 2007
- 238Security Council Rejects Demand for Cessation of Use of Force Against Federal Republic of YugoslaviaUnited Nations — 1999-03-26
- 240NewsWas It A Mistake?Christopher Layne et al. — 26 March 2000
- 241NewsU.N. Has Found 2,108 Bodies So Far in Kosovo Mass GravesDaniel Pearl — 11 November 1999
- 242NewsRights Group Says NATO Bombing in Yugoslavia Violated Law8 June 2000
- 243BookPaqja e përgjakshme: konferenca Ndërkombëtare për Kosovën, Rambuje 6–23. 2. 1999, Paris 14–19. 3. 1999Rexhep Qosja — Botimet Toena — 1999
- 244BookEncyclopedia of the Developing WorldThomas M. Leonard — Taylor & Francis — 2006
- 245BookThe United States and Coercive DiplomacyRobert J. Art et al. — US Institute of Peace Press — 2003
- 246BookLiberating Kosovo: Coercive Diplomacy and U.S. InterventionDavid L. Phillips et al. — MIT Press — 2012
- 247BookBosnia, Kosova & the WestMike Karadjis — Resistance Books — 2000
- 248BookUnderstanding the War in KosovoFlorian Bieber et al. — Routledge — 2004
- 249BookThe Albanian Question: Reshaping the BalkansJames Pettifer et al. — I.B. Tauris — 2007
- 250BookMediation and Liberal Peacebuilding: Peace from the Ashes of War?Mikael Eriksson et al. — Routledge — 2013
- 251BookPivotal Deterrence: Third-party Statecraft and the Pursuit of PeaceTimothy W. Crawford — Cornell University Press — 2003
- 252Jo shtatore ne Tirane atij qe nuk luftoi per clirimin e KosovesDilaver Goxhaj — AAV — 2016-01-23
- 253Inside the KLARosa Liebknecht — International Viewpoint — 10 April 1992
- 254Mincheva, Gurr (2013) p. 27Mincheva, Gurr — 2013
- 255NATO's Balkan War and the Kosova Liberation StruggleDoug Lorimer — Democratic Socialist Perspective – The Activist – Volume 9 — 14 June 1999
- 256BookEthical Foreign Policy?: US Humanitarian InterventionsChih-Hann Chang — Ashgate Publishing — 2013
- 257Krieger (2001) p. 485–Krieger — 2001
- 258BookThe search for Greater AlbaniaPaulin Kola — Hurst & Co. — 2003
- 259BookDilemmas of Democracy and Dictatorship: Place, Time and Ideology in Global PerspectiveMichael Radu — Transaction Publishers — 2005
- 260BookThe Former Yugoslavia at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century: A Guide to the Economies in TransitionIan Jeffries — Routledge — 2003
- 261Kosova: Zgjedhje HistorikeInternational Crisis Group — 2001-11-21
- 262R. Jeffrey Smith, "Outspoken Kosovo activist gunned down in stairwell". Toronto Star via Washington Post, 24 November 2000: A18.
- 263News3,000 missing in KosovoBBC — 2000-06-07
- 264Casualties in Kosovo2000-06-24
- 265JournalWar and mortality in Kosovo, 1998–99: an epidemiological testimonyP. B. Spiegel et al. — 24 June 2004
- 268NewsTribunal focuses on Serbia's Kosovo warMarlise Simons — 1969-12-31
- 269Ethnic Cleansing in Kosovo: An AccountingUS Department of State
- 270Killings and Refugee Flow in Kosovo2002-01-03
- 272NewsSerb killings 'exaggerated' by westJonathan Steele — 2000-08-18
- 273Graves put Kosovo death toll in doubtChris Bird — 1999-11-11
- 274NewsVlastimir Djordjevic: Serbian Official Involved in Kosovo Crimes Cover-UpMilica Stojanovic — 2019-06-05
- 275ReportDossier: The cover-up of evidence of crimes during the war in Kosovo: The Concealment of Bodies OperationHumanitarian Law Center — 2017
- 277Serbia uncovers 'Kosovo mass grave'Al Jazeera English — 10 May 2010
- 278NewsKosovo Albanian mass grave found under car park in SerbiaJulian Borger — 10 May 2010
- 279News250 ethnic Albanians found in mass graveVesna Perić — 11 May 2010
- 280NewsTwo Kosovo Albanians Identified from Wartime Mass Grave in SerbiaMilica Stojanovic — 2021-04-06
- 281Justice Gap For Kosovo 20 Years OnAbrahams Fred — 13 June 2019
- 282NewsSerbs murdered by the hundred since 'liberation'Robert Fisk — 24 November 1999
- 283Officially confirmed / documented NATO helicopter losses23 February 2001
- 284NewsU.S. helicopter crew killed in crash in Albania1999-05-05
- 285NewsAlleged connections between top Kosovo politicians and assassin investigated7 November 2014
- 286Kosovo and the Continuing SEAD ChallengeBenjamin S. Lambeth — United States Air Force — 2006-06-03
- 288Description of our Failing Defense Acquisition SystemEverest E. Riccioni — 2005-03-08
- 290A-10 Thunderbolt IIEjection-history.org.uk
- 292NewsCaptives strayed off track in perilous border zone1999-04-02
- 296BookThe Threatening Storm: What Every American Needs to Know Before an Invasion in IraqKenneth Pollack — Random House Publishing Group — 2003
- 297NewsKosovo: The conflict by numbersBBC — 11 June 1999
- 298Actu les MiG-29 serbes25 March 2020
- 299Kosovo CoverupOne-six-one.fifthinfantrydivision.com — 2000-05-15
- 300"The Kosovo Cover-Up" by John Barry and Evan Thomas, Newsweek, 15 May 2000.
- 302ReportThe Kosovo conflict consequences for the environment and human settlementsUNEP — 1999
- 303BookThe G and T Defense: George W Bush and Tony Blair: Heroes, Not VillainsMark B Jardine — Lulu.com — 2016
- 305BookPolitical Parties of Eastern Europe: A Guide to Politics in the Post-Communist EraJanusz Bugajski — The Center for Strategic and International Studies — 2002
- 306Kosovo/Serbia: Protect Minorities from Ethnic ViolenceHuman Rights Watch
- 307ReportUnder orderHuman Rights Watch — 2001
- 310NewsUncomfortable Truths: War Crimes in the Balkans16 November 2011
- 311BookThe Revival of Islam in the Balkans: From Identity to ReligiosityJeton Mehmeti — Palgrave Macmillan — 2015
- 312Herscher, Riedlmayer (2000) p. 87Herscher, Riedlmayer — 2000
- 313BookThe Destruction of Memory: Architecture at WarRobert Bevan — Reaktion books — 2007
- 314BookViolence taking place: The architecture of the Kosovo conflictAndrew Herscher — Stanford University Press — 2010
- 315JournalThe Legendary Commander: the construction of an Albanian master-narrative in post-war KosovoAnna De Lellio et al. — 2006
- 316NewsPioneering Kosovo Rape Victim Relives Battle for JusticeArber Kadriu et al. — Birn — 18 October 2018
- 317Wounds that burn our souls": Compensation for Kosovo's wartime rape survivors, but still no justiceAmnesty International — 13 December 2017
- 318BookWar Crimes and Justice: A Reference HandbookHoward Ball — ABC-CLIO — 2002
- 319BookGenocide: A Comprehensive IntroductionAdam Jones — Routledge — 2006
- 320BookThe SerbsTim Judah — Yale University Press — 2009
- 321Šainović et al., Case Information SheetInternational Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia — 2014
- 322Vlastimir Đorđević – Case Information SheetInternational Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia
- 323NewsFive Senior Serb Officials Convicted of Kosovo Crimes, One AcquittedInternational Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia — 26 February 2009
- 324NewsUN tribunal upholds judgments in three cases against Kosovo fighters27 September 2007
- 325NewsKosovo ex-PM Ramush Haradinaj cleared of war crimes29 November 2012
- 326ICTY prosecution denies claims of murder of witnesses in Haradinaj case28 November 2012
- 329NewsHorrors Alleged in KosovoMarc Champion — 2008-04-14
- 330NewsI Keep Telling Myself that Justice Will PrevailSpiegel
- 331Kosovo/Albania: Investigate Alleged KLA Crimes15 December 2010
- 332South-East Europe and Kosovo: Evaluation of the humanitarian situation in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, particularly in Kosovo and MontenegroParliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe — 18 September 1999
- 333Kosovo court to be established in The Hague15 January 2016
- 335NewsAmnesty: NATO bombing of Serbian TV 'war crime'Dusan Stojanovic — 23 April 2009
- 336NewsNato air strikes – the world reacts1999-03-25
- 337NewsMixed Asian reaction to NATO strikes1999-03-25
- 338NewsBombing fuels Chinese hostility1999-05-08
- 342Kosovo: International Reactions to NATO Air StrikesCongressional Research Service – The Library of Congress
- 343Takis Michas: "Unholy Alliance: Greece and Milošević's Serbia" p. 121
- 344NewsFrench pilots fly for Nato1999-04-24
- 345NewsMonitoring | Milosevic's statement: 'Defend the country'1999-03-24
- 347NewsLa guerra del Kosovo, Parisi e le scelte di Prodi e D' Alema'2004-02-25
- 348NewsL'errore del Cavaliere'2007-03-28
- 349BookCollision Course: NATO, Russia, and KosovoJohn Norris — Greenwood Publishing Group — 2005
- 350NewsRussia condemns Nato at UN1999-03-25
- 351NewsBritons 'support Nato strikes'1999-03-28
- 352Bombardowanie Serbii – 10 lat późniejprzegladprawoslawny.pl — 2009
- 353Przeciw nalotom NATOarchiwum.wyborcza.pl — 1999
- 354A Kosovo chronologyPBS.org — 4 May 1999
- 356NewsSofia hit by Nato missile1999-04-29
- 358NewsIn Syria, is bloody history repeating itself?Doug Saunders — 6 August 2012
- 360NewsUN frustrated by Kosovo deadlockBBC — 2006-10-09
- 362NewsUN Security Council remains divided on Kosovo2007-10-07
- 363Hundreds of crippled jets put RAF in crisisAntony Barnett — 2000-01-23
- 365MagazineNine Myths About KosovoRebecca Grant — June 2000
- 366News Release: Kosovo Campaign Medal Approved19 May 2000
- 367BookUnder Orders: War Crimes in KosovoFred Abrahams — Human Rights Watch — 2001
- 368BookWar Over Kosovo: Politics and Strategy in a Global AgeAndrew J. Bacevich et al. — Columbia University Press — 2001
- 369BookWinning Ugly: NATO's War to Save KosovoIvo H. Daalder et al. — Brookings Institution Press — 2000
- 370BookKosovo: Perceptions of War and Its AftermathRoland Dannreuther — A&C Black — 2001
- 371BookHistorical Dictionary of KosovoRobert Elsie — Scarecrow Press — 2010
- 372JournalMonument and crime: The destruction of historic architecture in KosovoAndrew Herscher et al. — 2000
- 373BookKosovo: War and RevengeTim Judah — Yale University Press — 2002
- 374BookThe Kosovo Conflict and International Law: An Analytical Documentation 1974–1999Cambridge University Press — 2001
- 375BookThe International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia 1997–1999André Klip et al. — 2001
- 376BookKosovo: A Short HistoryNoel Malcolm — Macmillan — 1998
- 377BookPropaganda and Information Warfare in the Twenty-First Century: Altered Images and Deception OperationsScott Macdonald — Routledge — 2007
- 378BookYugoslavia: A History of Its DemiseViktor Meier — Routledge — 1999
- 379BookCrime-Terror Alliances and the State: Ethnonationalist and Islamist Challenges to Regional SecurityLyubov Grigorova Mincheva et al. — Routledge — 2013
- 380BookFlashpoints in the War on TerrorismDerek S. Reveron et al. — Taylor & Francis — 2006
- 381BookThe Yugoslav Wars (2): Bosnia, Kosovo And Macedonia 1992–2001Nigel Thomas — Osprey Publishing — 2006