Kosovo Liberation Army
The Inside Story of an Insurgency
Publication Year: 2008
Published by: University of Illinois Press
Front Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Download PDF (114.1 KB)
pp. ix-xi
This book started with a conversation with Fahri Rama, then a waiter at the Hotel Victory in Prishtina. Fahri was twenty-two at the time, handsome, graceful, and shy. My friend Alban Rafuna, also a waiter in the hotel, introduced me to Fahri, telling me that Fahri has...
Introduction
Download PDF (96.0 KB)
pp. 1-12
The first time I was in Kosovo, during the cease fire in December 1998—or more accurately, as the cease fire was breaking down—I asked our UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) hosts if they could take me to see the Kosovo Liberation Army. After some...
1. Faces of the KLA and Its Kosovar Antagonists
Download PDF (96.5 KB)
pp. 13-24
The Kosovo Liberation Army fought a paradigmatic Fourth Generation War. “Fourth Generation War” is a term coined by some of the more perceptive military theorists in the U.S. Army and Marine Corps communities. “Fourth-generation warfare (4GW), unlike previous...
2. Building and Maintaining Public Support
Download PDF (89.3 KB)
pp. 25-35
Revolution does not succeed without popular support. “Without a political goal,” said Mao Tse-Tung, “guerrilla warfare must fail, as it must if its political objectives do not coincide with the aspirations of the people and their sympathy, cooperation, and assistance cannot be...
3. Recruiting Fighters and Commanders
Download PDF (86.1 KB)
pp. 36-45
Fahri Rama, slim and well built, looks taller than his 5'11". He now works as a waiter in the Hotel Victory in Prishtina, where his boyish smile breaks through his shyness whenever he greets a guest. (The hotel caters to internationals.) Fahri joined the KLA when he...
4. Avoiding Annihilation, Taking Advantage of Milosevic
Download PDF (110.9 KB)
pp. 46-60
Milosevic and his backers were well schooled in a variety of techniques for suppressing insurgency. They knew how to penetrate resistance organizations. They knew how to decapitate a resistance movement by imprisoning or killing its leaders. They thought they knew how...
Image Plates
5. The KLA at War
Download PDF (187.8 KB)
pp. 61-87
Military actions that were precursors to KLA operations began in the late eighties with armed resistance to Serb police trying to take Albanian activists into custody. By the early nineties they included organized attacks on police convoys, police stations, and...
6. Financing
Download PDF (99.0 KB)
pp. 88-99
Overall contributions in support of the Kosovo Liberation Army ranged from $75 million to $100 million. Modest fund-raising activities began in Switzerland in the 1980s, as part of the Planners in Exile’s efforts to prepare for armed resistance. After the...
7. Training
Download PDF (84.4 KB)
pp. 100-109
Before mid-1998, most KLA fighters received no training. They just got guns, teamed up with some of their buddies, and improvised attacks on police stations. As the conflict intensified in late 1997 and early 1998, and after the number of volunteers mushroomed...
8. Supplying
Download PDF (144.1 KB)
pp. 110-129
Early fighting effectiveness was constrained mainly by an inadequate supply of arms. In 1996, there were only a few dozen armed fighters. Many others wanted to fight but they had no weapons. There was a tendency before mid-1998 for the KLA to underestimate...
9. Shaping International Reaction
Download PDF (161.9 KB)
pp. 130-151
In late February 1998, the American envoy to the Balkans was calling the KLA a “terrorist group.” Fifteen months later, and led by the United States, NATO was bombing Belgrade. How did this come about? The Kosovo Liberation Army was ultimately successful in...
10. Postwar Politics: The KLA at the Ballot Box
Download PDF (118.8 KB)
pp. 152-166
The Kosovo Liberation Army experience defined postwar politics in Kosovo. The popularity that had allowed the KLA to operate did not evaporate when the organization itself had ceased to exist. Thousands of its fighters staffed the postwar Kosovo Protection Corps and...
11. The KLA in the Dock
Download PDF (110.1 KB)
pp. 167-179
Any story of the KLA would be incomplete without considering postwar prosecution of many KLA leaders for war crimes. Postconflict political evolution in Kosovo was significantly affected by these prosecutions, a new feature of the international legal order, born of...
12. Conclusion
Download PDF (51.5 KB)
pp. 181-184
As this story of the Kosovo Liberation Army concludes and the international community works with Kosovar Albanian political leaders to chart Kosovo’s entry into the community as an independent state, the KLA insurgency invites reconsideration of the realities of...
Acronyms and Organization Names
Download PDF (45.0 KB)
pp. 185-188
Roster of Key Individuals
Download PDF (54.6 KB)
pp. 189-193
Notes
Download PDF (95.7 KB)
pp. 195-205
Bibliography
Download PDF (46.6 KB)
pp. 207-209
Index
Download PDF (145.4 KB)
pp. 211-230
Back Cover
E-ISBN-13: 9780252092138
Print-ISBN-13: 9780252033421
Page Count: 264
Publication Year: 2008
