Attack on Prekaz
| Attack on Prekaz | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Kosovo War | |||||
|
|||||
| Belligerents | |||||
 Yugoslav Army Serbian police Special Anti-Terrorist Unit
|
 Kosovo Liberation Army
|
||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||
|
Goran Radosavljević Sreten Lukić
|
Adem Jashari † Hamëz Jashari †
|
||||
| Strength | |||||
|
100 policemen |
28 militants |
||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||
| 2 policemen killed, seven wounded | 58 Kosovo Albanians killed, including eighteen women and ten children | ||||
Coordinates: 42°46′N 20°49′E / 42.767°N 20.817°E
The Attack on Prekaz, also known as the Prekaz massacre, was an operation led by the Special Anti-Terrorism Unit of Serbia on 5 March 1998, to capture Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) fighters deemed terrorists by Serbia. During the operation, KLA leader Adem Jashari and his brother Hamëz were killed, along with nearly 60 other family members. The attack was criticized by Amnesty International, which wrote in its report that: "all evidence suggests that the attack was not intended to apprehend armed Albanians, but 'to eliminate the suspects and their families.'" Serbia, on the other hand, claimed the raid was due to KLA attacks on police outposts.
Adem and Hamëz Jashari were members of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), a militant group of ethnic Albanians that sought the independence of Kosovo from Yugoslavia. Adem Jashari was responsible for organizing the first armed political formation in Srbica (Skënderaj in Albanian) in 1991.
Pursuing Adem Jashari for the murder of a Serbian policeman, Serbian forces again attempted to assault the Jashari compound in Prekaz on 22 January 1998. On 28 February 1998, a firefight erupted between Albanian militants and a Serbian police patrol in the small village of Likošane. Four Serbian policemen were killed and several were injured. The KLA militants, one of whom was Adem Jashari, escaped. Subsequently, Serbian police killed thirteen people in a nearby household. Later that same day, Serbian policemen attacked the neighbouring village of Ćirez and subsequently killed 26 Albanians. However, the Albanian militants who had incited the violence managed to escape and the police decided to move in on Adem Jashari and his family. A long-time radical hardliner in the Drenica valley, Jashari decided to stay in his home and he instructed his fighters to stay there as well and resist to the last man.
...
Wikipedia