KLA Summer offensive (1998)
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| KLA Summer offensive (1998) | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Kosovo War | |||||||||
| |||||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||||
 Kosovo Liberation Army |
 FR Yugoslavia | ||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
|
Ismet Jashari † Agim Çelaj † Ismet Tara Fatmir Limaj Agim Shala † Zafir Berisha |
Goran Radosavljević Sreten Lukić Nebojša Pavković | ||||||||
| Units involved | |||||||||
|
121st Brigade 125th Brigade 111th Brigade 138th Brigade |
Armed Forces of Serbia and Montenegro Police of Serbia | ||||||||
| Strength | |||||||||
|
several brigades |
T-55 and M-84 tanks armored vehicles unknown number of personnel | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
| unknown |
17 killed | ||||||||
The KLA's “Summer” offensive (Albanian: Ofensiva verore e UÇK-së, Serbian: Летња офанзива ОВК; romanized: Letnja ofanziva OVK) was a large scale offensive conducted by the KLA during the summer of 1998. It was fought in Kosovo between the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) against the Yugoslav Army and MUP.[4]
It began when the KLA switched their tactics from hit and run operations to conventional warfare.[4] KLA forces began attacking towns and expanding their territory.[4][5] KLA forces had captured about 40% of Kosovo, and set up “Operational Zones”.[4][6] Yugoslav soldiers and policemen were attacked, leading to many casualties.[5]
Background[edit]
Following World War II, Kosovo was given the status of an autonomous province within the Socialist Republic of Serbia, one of six constitutional republics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.[7] After the death of Yugoslavia's long-time leader Josip Broz Tito in 1980, Yugoslavia's political system began to unravel.[8] In 1989, Belgrade abolished self-rule in Kosovo, as well as Serbia's other autonomous province, Vojvodina, as part of Serbian President Slobodan Milošević's "anti-bureaucratic revolution".[9] Though inhabited predominantly by ethnic Albanians, Kosovo was of great historical and cultural significance to the Serbs.[10] Alarmed by their dwindling numbers, the province's Serbs began to fear they were being "squeezed out" by the Albanians.[11] As soon as Kosovo's autonomy was abolished, a minority government run by Serbs and Montenegrins was appointed by Milošević to oversee the province, enforced by thousands of heavily armed paramilitaries from Serbia-proper. Albanian culture was systematically repressed and hundreds of thousands of Albanians working in state-owned companies lost their jobs.[9]
In 1996, a ragtag group of Albanian nationalists calling themselves the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) began attacking the Yugoslav Army (Serbo-Croatian: Vojska Jugoslavije; VJ) and the Serbian Ministry of Internal Affairs (Serbo-Croatian: Ministarstvo unutrašnjih poslova; MUP) in Kosovo. Their goal was to separate the province from the rest of Yugoslavia, which following the separation of Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1991–92, became a rump federation made up of Serbia and Montenegro. At first the KLA carried out hit-and-run attacks: 31 in 1996, 55 in 1997, and 66 in January and February 1998 alone.[12] The group quickly gained popularity among young Kosovo Albanians, many of whom favoured a more aggressive approach and rejected the non-violent resistance of politician Ibrahim Rugova.[13] The organization received a significant boost in 1997, when an armed uprising in neighbouring Albania led to thousands of weapons from the Albanian Army's depots being looted. Many of these weapons ended up in the hands of the KLA.[14] The KLA also received substantial funds from its involvement in the drug trade.[15][16] The group's popularity skyrocketed after the VJ and MUP attacked the compound of KLA leader Adem Jashari in March 1998, killing him, his closest associates and most of his extended family. The attack motivated thousands of young Kosovo Albanians to join the KLA, fueling the Kosovar uprising that eventually erupted in the spring of 1998.[17]
References[edit]
- ^ Perritt, Henry H. (October 2010). Kosovo Liberation Army: The Inside Story of an Insurgency. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0-252-09213-8.
- ^ Krieger, Heike (12 July 2001). The Kosovo Conflict and International Law: An Analytical Documentation 1974-1999. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-80071-6.
- ^ Krieger, Heike (12 July 2001). The Kosovo Conflict and International Law: An Analytical Documentation 1974-1999. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-80071-6.
- ^ a b c d "Koktsidis & Dam 2008, p. 170" (PDF).
- ^ a b Krieger, Heike (2001-07-12). The Kosovo Conflict and International Law: An Analytical Documentation 1974-1999. Cambridge University Press. p. 109. ISBN 978-0-521-80071-6.
- ^ Perritt, Henry H. (2010). Kosovo Liberation Army: The Inside Story of an Insurgency. University of Illinois Press. p. 70. ISBN 9780252092138.
- ^ Judah, Tim (2002). Kosovo: War and Revenge. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press. p. 34. ISBN 978-0-300-09725-2.
- ^ Judah, pp. 38–9
- ^ a b Adam LeBor (2002). Milosevic: A Biography. New York. p. 276. ISBN 978-0-300-10317-5.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ Miranda Vickers (1999). The Albanians: A Modern History. New York: I.B.Tauris. p. 97. ISBN 978-1-86064-541-9.
- ^ Jasminka Udovički; James Ridgeway (2000). Burn This House: The Making and Unmaking of Yugoslavia. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press. p. 322. ISBN 978-0-8223-2590-1.
- ^ Judah, Tim (2002). Kosovo: War and Revenge. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press. p. 137. ISBN 978-0-300-09725-2.
- ^ Dušan Janjić (2012). "Kosovo under the Milošević Regime". In Charles W. Ingrao; Thomas A. Emmert (eds.). Confronting the Yugoslav Controversies: A Scholars' Initiative (2nd ed.). West Lafayette, Indiana: Purdue University Press. p. 293. ISBN 978-1-55753-617-4.
- ^ Judah, pp. 127–130
- ^ Sörensen, Jens Stilhoff (2009). State Collapse and Reconstruction in the Periphery: Political Economy, Ethnicity and Development in Yugoslavia, Serbia and Kosovo. New York City: Berghahn Books. p. 203. ISBN 978-1-84545-560-6.
- ^ Jonsson, Michael (2014). "The Kosovo Conflict: From Humanitarian Intervention to State Capture". In Cornell, Svante; Jonsson, Michael (eds.). Conflict, Crime, and the State in Postcommunist Eurasia. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 184. ISBN 978-0-81224-565-3.
- ^ Judah, pp. 138–41