page_title: Kosovo Liberation Army
section_title: In Kosovo
hierarchical_section_title: Kosovo Liberation Army / Recruitment / In Kosovo
caption_attribution_description: Shqip: Busti i Hamëz Jasharit English: Hamëz Jashari monument in Skënderaj / Srbica
context_page_description: The Kosovo Liberation Army was an ethnic-Albanian separatist militia that sought the separation of Kosovo from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and Serbia during the 1990s and the eventual creation of Greater Albania due to the presence of a vast ethnic majority of Albanians in the region, stressing Albanian culture, ethnicity and nation.
  Military precursors to the KLA began in the late 1980s with armed resistance to Yugoslav police trying to take Albanian activists in custody. By early 1990s there were attacks on police forces and secret-service officials who abused Albanian civilians. By mid-1998 the KLA was involved in frontal battle though it was outnumbered and outgunned. Conflict escalated from 1997 onward due to the Yugoslavian army retaliating with a crackdown in the region which resulted in violence and population displacements. The bloodshed, ethnic cleansing of thousands of Albanians driving them into neighbouring countries and the potential of it to destabilize the region provoked intervention by international organizations, such as the United Nations, NATO and INGOs. NATO supported the KLA and intervened on its behalf in March 1999.
context_section_description: The original core of KLA in the early 1990s was a closely knitted group of commanders consisting of commissioned and non commissioned officers belonging to reserve, regular and territorial defense units of the Yugoslav army (JNA). In 1996, the KLA consisted of only a few hundred fighters. Within the context of the armed struggle, in 1996-1997 a report by the CIA noted that the KLA could mobilize tens of thousands of supporters in Kosovo within a two to three year time frame. By the end of 1998, the KLA had 17,000 men. Religion did not play a role within the KLA and some of its most committed fund raisers and fighters came from the Catholic community.
caption: Hamez Jashari
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "KONICA MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERA", "Image Make": "KONICA MINOLTA", "Image Model": "DiMAGE X1", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "DiMAGE X1 Ver1.10", "Image DateTime": "2006:08:12 22:17:51", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "534", "Image SubjectArea": "[800, 600, 533, 400]", "Image CustomRendered": "Normal", "Image ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "Image WhiteBalance": "Auto", "Image DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "Image FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "111", "Image SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "Image GainControl": "None", "Image Contrast": "Normal", "Image Saturation": "Normal", "Image Sharpness": "Normal", "Image SubjectDistanceRange": "0", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 50, 53, 48, 0, 0, 0, 5, 0, 1, 0, 22, ... ]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "13556", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "2891", "Thumbnail YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/50", "EXIF FNumber": "8", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "50", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2006:08:12 22:17:51", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2006:08:12 22:17:51", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF BrightnessValue": "38/5", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "77/20", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, auto mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "231/10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1200", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1600"}