Operation Fenix

In 1989, Belgrade abolished self-rule in Serbia's two autonomous provinces, Vojvodina and Kosovo.{{cite book|author=Adam LeBor|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZgLko7wjK04C|title=Milosevic: A Biography|year=2002|isbn=978-0-300-10317-5|location=New York|page=276|author-link=Adam LeBor}} Kosovo, a province inhabited predominantly by ethnic Albanians, was of great historical and cultural significance to Serbs.{{cite book|author=Miranda Vickers|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IzI0uOZ2j6gC|title=The Albanians: A Modern History|publisher=I.B.Tauris|year=1999|isbn=978-1-86064-541-9|location=New York|page=97}} Prior to the mid-19th century they had formed a majority in the province, but by 1990 represented only about 10 percent of the population.{{cite book|author=James Summers|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oW2ad7wfz_YC|title=Kosovo: A Precedent?|publisher=BRILL|year=2011|isbn=978-90-474-2943-2|editor=James Summers|location=Leiden, Netherlands|page=5|chapter=Kosovo: From Yugoslav Province to Disputed Independence}} Alarmed by their dwindling numbers, the province's Serbs began to fear they were being "squeezed out" by the Albanians, with whom ethnic tensions had been brewing since the early 1980s.{{cite book|author1=Jasminka Udovički|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GuGe9fy4raoC|title=Burn This House: The Making and Unmaking of Yugoslavia|author2=James Ridgeway|publisher=Duke University Press|year=2000|isbn=978-0-8223-2590-1|location=Durham, North Carolina|page=322}} As soon as Kosovo's autonomy was abolished, a minority government run by Serbs and Montenegrins was appointed by Serbian President Slobodan Milošević to oversee the province, enforced by thousands of heavily armed paramilitaries from Serbia-proper. Albanian culture was systematically repressed and hundreds of thousands of Albanians working in state-owned companies lost their jobs.

In 1996, a ragtag group of Albanian nationalists calling themselves the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) began attacking the Yugoslav Army ({{lang-sh-Latn|Vojska Jugoslavije}}; VJ) and the Serbian Ministry of Internal Affairs ({{lang-sh-Latn|Ministarstvo unutrašnjih poslova|links=no}}; MUP) in Kosovo. Their goal was to separate the province from the rest of Yugoslavia, which following the separation of Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1991–92, became a rump federation made up of Serbia and Montenegro. At first the KLA carried out hit-and-run attacks: 31 in 1996, 55 in 1997, and 66 in January and February 1998 alone.{{cite book|last=Judah|first=Tim|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sVf1na3FN_UC|title=Kosovo: War and Revenge|publisher=Yale University Press|year=2002|isbn=978-0-300-09725-2|location=New Haven, Connecticut|page=137|author-link=Tim Judah}} The group quickly gained popularity among young Kosovo Albanians, many of whom favored a more aggressive approach and rejected the non-violent resistance of politician Ibrahim Rugova.{{cite book|author=Dušan Janjić|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IDMhDgCJCe0C|title=Confronting the Yugoslav Controversies: A Scholars' Initiative|publisher=Purdue University Press|year=2012|isbn=978-1-55753-617-4|editor1=Charles W. Ingrao|edition=2nd|location=West Lafayette, Indiana|page=293|chapter=Kosovo under the Milošević Regime|editor2=Thomas A. Emmert}} It received a significant boost in 1997 when civil unrest in neighboring Albania led to thousands of weapons from the Albanian Army's depots being looted. Many of these weapons ended up in the hands of the KLA.Judah, pp. x, 127–30 The group's popularity skyrocketed after the VJ and MUP attacked the compound of KLA leader Adem Jashari in March 1998, killing him, his closest associates and most of his extended family. The attack motivated thousands of young Kosovo Albanians to join the KLA, fueling the Kosovar uprising that eventually erupted in the spring of 1998.Judah, pp. 138–41

The men, who were part of the KLA's "Cobra" unit, first prepared for the ambush by laying anti tank mines.{{Cite news|last=Nikolic|first=Ivana|quote=The indictment alleges that the eight accused men – Sicer Maloku, Gashi Xhafer, Demush Gacaferi, Deme Maloku, Agron Isufi, Anton Cuni, Rabit Alija and Rrustem Berisha – first prepared an ambush for Yugoslav Army border troops by laying anti-tank mines.|title=Kosovo Ex-Guerrillas Await Yugoslav Army Ambush Verdict|work=Balkan insight|url=https://balkaninsight.com/2016/02/16/kosovo-guerrillas-await-yugoslav-army-ambush-verdict-02-16-2016/}} Later, a Yugoslav tank came and detonated one of the anti tank mines. The blast killed one soldier and injured four others. A Yugoslav army helicopter was sent out to pick up the surviving soldiers, but it was fired upon by the KLA.{{Cite news|last=Nikolic|first=Ivana|quote=A Yugoslav Army tank detonated the mine, killing one soldier and wounding four others, and then the KLA fighters opened fire on an army helicopter that arrived to take away the casualties, the charges claim.|title=Kosovo Ex-Guerrillas Await Yugoslav Army Ambush Verdict|work=Balkan Insight|url=https://balkaninsight.com/2016/02/16/kosovo-guerrillas-await-yugoslav-army-ambush-verdict-02-16-2016/}} A second attack happened shortly after, this time close to the Košare border outpost. The KLA fighters ambushed a Yugoslav army vehicle. They opened fire upon the vehicle and threw hand grenades at it, killing five Yugoslav soldiers and wounding two more.{{Cite news|quote=This was followed by a second attack shortly afterwards close to the Kosare border post, when the accused set another ambush and opened fire on a Yugoslav Army vehicle, throwing hand grenades and killing five soldiers and wounding two more, the prosecution alleges.|url=https://balkaninsight.com/2016/02/16/kosovo-guerrillas-await-yugoslav-army-ambush-verdict-02-16-2016/|title=Kosovo Ex-Guerrillas Await Yugoslav Army Ambush Verdict}} They then collected ammunition and equipment from the vehicle and soldiers and robbed the dead of their personal belongings. The KLA then opened fire to another helicopter which came to evacuate the wounded.{{Cite news|quote=The KLA fighters – who attacked from Albanian territory – then robbed the soldiers and targeted another helicopter that came to evacuate the wounded, according to the indictment.|title=Kosovo Ex-Guerrillas Await Yugoslav Army Ambush Verdict|url=https://balkaninsight.com/2016/02/16/kosovo-guerrillas-await-yugoslav-army-ambush-verdict-02-16-2016/}}

The higher court in the southern Serbian city of Niš on February 17, 2016, found Sicer Maloku, Gashi Xhafer, Demush Gacaferi, Deme Maloku, Agron Isufi, Anton Cuni, Rabit Alija and Rrustem Berisha guilty of acts of terrorism and ordered each of them to be jailed for 15 years for their involvement in two attacks on Yugoslav Army troops in Kosare on the same day in 1998. Rrustem Berisha is currently a Kosovar politician and military officer. He is currently the Minister of Defense of Kosovo. he responded to the conviction by saying this; “We had uniforms. We were soldiers and we fought against soldiers. They [the Yugoslav Army] killed civilians including elderly people, children and women."{{Cite news|quote=“We had uniforms. We were soldiers and we fought against soldiers. They [the Yugoslav Army] killed civilians including elderly people, children and women,” Berisha said.|url=https://balkaninsight.com/2016/02/17/kosovo-ex-guerillas-jailed-for-kosare-crimes-02-17-2016/ |title=Kosovo Ex-Guerrillas Convicted of Yugoslav Army Killings}} Former Prime Minister of Kosovo Isa Mustafa said that a Serbian court's decision to convict eight former Kosovo Liberation Army fighters of killing Yugoslav Army troops in September 1998 was a farce.{{Cite news|last=Collaku|first=Petrit|quote=Prime Minister Isa Mustafa said that a Serbian court's decision to convict eight former Kosovo Liberation Army fighters of killing Yugoslav Army troops in September 1998 was a farce.|title=Kosovo PM: KLA Convictions are a Serbian Farce|work=balkan insight|url=https://balkaninsight.com/2016/02/18/kosovo-pm-kla-verdict-is-serbia-s-justice-farce-02-18-2016/}} Mustafa said that courts in Serbia have no right to judge Kosovo's citizens and even less to try former KLA fighters who were involved in what he called a liberation war and respected the laws and customs of warfare.

None of the former KLA militants have served the sentence they were given.{{Cite news|last=Çollaku|first=Petrit|quote=Mustafa said on Thursday that courts in Serbia have no right to judge Kosovo's citizens and even less to try former KLA fighters who were involved in what he called a liberation war and respected the laws and customs of warfare. “The government of Republic of Kosovo will inform [its] international partners about this tendency and will ask them to put pressure on Serbia to stop such court farces and the pursuing of citizens of the Kosovo Republic under baseless charges [which are] totally outside international judicial standards,” Mustafa said during a government meeting. He added that Wednesday's verdict convicting the eight former KLA fighters, which handed down by a court in the Serbian city of Nis, will not have any legal impact because Serbian courts does not have a jurisdiction over Kosovo citizens. “Kosovo is an independent country. For Serbia, the citizens of Republic of Kosovo are foreign citizens,” Mustafa said. The higher court in Nis on Wednesday found the former KLA members guilty of acts of terrorism for ambushing and killing Yugoslav Army troops in Kosare in Kosovo in September 1998. The former KLA men – Shiqer Maloku, Xhafer Gashi, Demush Gacaferi, Deme Maloku, Agron Isufi, Anton Cuni, Rabit Alija and Rrustem Berisha – were convicted in absentia and given prison sentences of 15 years each.|title=Kosovo PM: KLA Convictions are a Serbian Farce|work=Balkan insight|url=https://balkaninsight.com/2016/02/18/kosovo-pm-kla-verdict-is-serbia-s-justice-farce-02-18-2016/}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Fenix 1998}}

Category:Conflicts in 1998

Category:1998 in Kosovo

Category:1998 in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia

Category:Ambushes of the Kosovo War

Category:Battles involving Albania

Category:Battles involving FR Yugoslavia

Category:Albania–Serbia border

Category:Ambushes in Albania

Category:Cross-border operations

Category:September 1998 in Europe