Insurgency in Kosovo (1995–98)

Insurgency in Kosovo
Part of Yugoslav Wars, the prelude of the Kosovo War
Kosovo and Metohija (1999)
Date 27 May 1995 – 28 February 1998 (2 years, 9 months and 1 day) Location AP Kosovo and Metohija, R. Serbia, FR Yugoslavia Result Start of Kosovo War
Belligerents
KLA	Serbian Police
Commanders and leaders
Adem Jashari Hamëz Jashari Sylejman Selimi Hashim Thaçi Zahir Pajaziti  †
Strength
Few hundred (1996–97)
Casualties and losses
	10 policemen (1996–February 1998)
24 civilians (1996–February 1998)

Militancy in Kosovo emerged in 1995, following the Dayton Agreement. Kosovo Albanians had proclaimed the Republic of Kosova on September 22, 1992, and sought recognition in the Dayton Agreement. In 1996, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) took responsibility for terrorist attacks, targeting ethnic Serb villages and Serbian governmental buildings and police stations. The KLA was funded by the diaspora and drug trafficking, and received a large amount of arms following the Albanian civil war. The insurgency led to the Kosovo War in March 1998.

From 1991 to 1992, Albanian nationalist Adem Jashari and about 100 other ethnic Albanians wishing to fight for the independence of Kosovo underwent military training in the municipality of Labinot-Mal in Albania. Afterwards, Jashari and other ethnic Albanians committed several acts of sabotage aimed at the Serbian administrative apparatus in Kosovo. Attempting to capture or kill him, Serbian police surrounded Jashari and his older brother, Hamëz, at their home in Prekaz on 30 December 1991. In the ensuing siege, large numbers of Kosovo Albanians flocked to Prekaz, forcing the Serbs to withdraw from the village. While in Albania, Jashari was arrested in 1993 by the government of Sali Berisha and sent to jail in Tirana before being released alongside other Kosovo Albanian militants at the demand of the Albanian Army. Jashari launched several attacks over the next several years, targeting the Yugoslav Army (VJ) and Serbian police in Kosovo. In the spring of 1993, "Homeland Calls" meetings were held in Arau, Switzerland, organized by Xhavit Halili, Azem Syla, Jashar Salihu and others. KLA strategist Xhavit Halili said that in 1993, the KLA 'considered and then rejected the IRA, PLO and ETA models'.

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