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The Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA or UÇK; Albanian: Ushtria Çlirimtare e Kosovës) was an Albanian guerrilla group which operated in Kosovo during the late 1990s.

History

The name "Kosovo Liberation Army" was first used in the Republic of Macedonia in 1992. In 1995, beginnings of armed confrontation appeared in Kosovo, when the KLA carried out isolated attacks on Serbian police. The KLA appeared for the first time in public in June 1996, assuming responsibility for a series of acts of sabotage committed against the police stations and policemen in Kosovo. After these bombings, Serb authorities named it a terrorist organization.

In 1997-98 KLA carried out numerous attacks on police in Kosovo, and set up roadblocks in the countryside. In this period it was added to the U.S. State Department's list of terrorist organisations. By May 1998 it effectively controlled a quarter of the province, centered by the region of Drenica, its stronghold being around the village of Donji Prekaz. In the spring and summer of 1998, Serbian security forces launched an offensive against the KLA, crushed most of its organization, regained control over most of the province (save for a pocket around the bordertown of Junik) and pushed the remaining KLA into Albania.

The KLA responded by establishing training camps and bases in the mountains of Albania. The Albanian government did nothing to prevent this, while claiming that it did not support the KLA. The KLA more than regained its strength, and when the Kosovo war broke out on March 24, 1999, KLA was estimated to have 6,000 to 8,000 people in total, 2,000 to 4,000 in Kosovo, and the rest in Albania.

Urged by the war, ethnic Albanians from all over Europe (but mostly from Kosovo) came to Albania to join the KLA. When the war was over in June, it was estimated that KLA had grown to a total of 17,000 to 20,000 in total, with perhaps as many as 15,000 in Kosovo at any time.

According to the agreement between NATO and Yugoslavia of June 1999, the KLA was to be demilitarised but this didn't really happen. The KLA was transformed into a supposed emergency response (fire, natural disaster) service Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC, TMK in Albanian) although members retained military-like uniforms and a small number of light weapons were officially allowed to be kept by the KPC. To this day, the KPC is a force to be reckoned with in Kosovo, its primary adversaries are non-Albanians (mostly Serbs) and Albanians who did not support the KLA. A new guerrilla group called UCPMB, consisting of KLA veterans, began operating in the demilitarised zone in Southern Serbia in 2000-01. In the Republic of Macedonia, a new organization also named UÇK (Albanian: Ushtria Çlirimtare Kombëtare) - the National Liberation Army - started similar actions claiming that it wants to improve civil rights for ethnic Albanians in 2000-01.

Political base

The KLA was not attached to any political party, but had the support of separatist Kosovar Albanians wanting Kosovo independent of Yugoslavia. During the Kosovo war, even moderate Kosovo Albanians supported the KLA.

Organization and financing

Up until February 1998, the KLA had its headquarters in the Drenica region in Kosovo. After that, separate headquarters were established around Pristina and in Albania. According to Serbian accounts, the primary KLA training camps in Albania were Labinot, near Tirana, Tropojë, Kukës and Bajram Curri near the Yugoslav-Albanian border. Serbia claims that these locations are also the headquarters for the command and units of the Albanian army and police for the north-eastern part of Albania and the centers for recruiting followers of the overthrown Albanian president Sali Berisha.

Numerous allegations have been made that the KLA was financed by organized crime, specifically drug smuggling through Former Yugoslavia. Europol reportedly tied the KLA to criminal syndicates in Albania, Turkey and the European Union, and Ralf Mutschke of Interpol reported that the KLA had received financing both from the Afghan heroin trade and from Al-Qaeda . Slobodan Milosevic, during his trial, repeated the allegation that the KLA was affiliated with Al-Qaeda, based on FBI testimony that Osama bin Laden had operated through groups in Albania . Following the Kosovo War, it was widely reported that ex-KLA fighters had established extensive criminal networks within Kosovo , and organised crime remains a major problem within the province.

See also

• Kosovo War

External links

• How Islamic Terrorism Took Root in Albania
• Articles on KLA-Kosovo-Drugs-Mafia and Fundraising
• Kosovo a "Drug Smuggler’s Paradise"
• Kosovo - narco-state
• KLA Linked To Enormous Heroin Trade

• Irregular military
• History of Kosovo
• National liberation movements