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Kosovo Force

Kosovo Force
Insignia NATO Army KFOR.svg
Emblem of KFOR in both the Latin and Cyrillic scripts
Active 1999–present
Country 31 countries
Type Command
Part of NATO

The Kosovo Force (KFOR) is a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation-led international peacekeeping force which was responsible for establishing a secure environment in Kosovo. It was established at the end of the Kosovo War in which the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) and the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) were fighting for control of the territory.

KFOR entered Kosovo on 12 June 1999, two days after the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 1244. At the time, Kosovo was facing a grave humanitarian crisis, with military forces from the FRY and the KLA in daily engagement. According to NATO, Serb forces had committed ethnic cleansing of Kosovo Albanians. Nearly one million people had fled Kosovo as refugees.. After the end of the conflict the majority of temporarily displaced Kosovo Albanians returned to Kosovo, while over 200,000 (over half) Serb and other non-Albanians civilians were expelled and many of the remaining civilians were victims of abuse.

KFOR has gradually transferred responsibilities to the Kosovo Police and other local authorities. As of 23 May 2016, KFOR consisted of 4,600 troops.

NATO's initial mandate was:

Today, KFOR focuses on building a secure environment in which all citizens, irrespective of their ethnic origins, can live in peace and, with international aid, democracy and civil society are gradually gaining strength. KFOR tasks have included:

The Contact Group countries have said publicly that KFOR will remain in Kosovo to provide the security necessary to support the provisions of a final settlement of Kosovo's status.

KFOR contingents were originally grouped into 4 regionally based multinational brigades. The brigades were responsible for a specific area of operations, but under a single chain of command under the authority of Commander KFOR. In August 2005, the North Atlantic Council decided to restructure KFOR, replacing the four existing multinational brigades with five task forces, to allow for greater flexibility with, for instance, the removal of restrictions on the cross-boundary movement of units based in different sectors of Kosovo. Then in February 2010, the Multinational Task Forces became Multinational Battle Groups and in March 2011, KFOR was restructured again, into just two multinational battlegroups; one based at Camp Bondsteel, and one based at Peć.


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