Operation Alba

Operation Alba ("Sunrise") was a multinational peacekeeping force sent to Albania in 1997. Led by Italy, it was intended to help the Albanian government restore law and order in their troubled country after the 1997 rebellion in Albania.

Following the degenerating loss of administrative control by the Government in the first days of March 1997, culminating in the desertion of most Police and many Republican Guard and Army units, leaving their armouries open to the inevitable looting which soon followed, several Nations autonomously helped evacuate their Nationals, causing wider concerns about the fate of others. The UN Security Council therefore agreed United Nations Security Council Resolution 1101 as a stop-gap operation to manage this and buy time, laying the foundations for another International Organisation to manage a planned reconstruction, which after six weeks of debate fell to the Western European Union, creating the Multinational Albanian Police Element around a command structure of Italian Military Carabinieri, which actually undertook the work of Judicial and Police reconstruction, extending into the elimination of the economic causes of the crisis.

The Italian 3rd Army Corps assumed responsibility for the stop-gap mission as Operation Alba, the first multinational Italian-led Mission since World War II. Eleven contributing European Nations brought humanitarian aid to a country that was in a dramatic economic and political situation.

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