NATO bombing of Yugoslavia

A NATO-facilitated ceasefire between the KLA and Yugoslav forces was signed on 15 October 1998, but both sides broke it two months later and fighting resumed. Resolution 1160, resolution 1199 and resolution 1203 adopted by the UN Security Council had been disregarded. When the killing of 45 Kosovar Albanians in the Račak massacre was reported in January 1999, NATO decided that the conflict could only be settled by introducing a military peacekeeping force to forcibly restrain the two sides. Yugoslavia refused to sign the Rambouillet Accords, which among other things called for 30,000 NATO peacekeeping troops in Kosovo; an unhindered right of passage for NATO troops on Yugoslav territory; immunity for NATO and its agents to Yugoslav law; and the right to use local roads, ports, railways, and airports without payment and requisition public facilities for its use free of cost. NATO then prepared to install the peacekeepers by force, using this refusal to justify the bombings. In its Statement Issued at the Extraordinary Ministerial Meeting of the North Atlantic Council held at NATO Headquarters, Brussels, on 12th April 1999 three weeks after the start of hostilities on 23 March 1999, the collective said that "The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) has repeatedly violated United Nations Security Council resolutions. The unrestrained assault by Yugoslav military, police and paramilitary forces, under the direction of President Milosevic, on Kosovar civilians has created a massive humanitarian catastrophe which also threatens to destabilise the surrounding region. Hundreds of thousands of people have been expelled ruthlessly from Kosovo by the FRY authorities. We condemn these appalling violations of human rights and the indiscriminate use of force by the Yugoslav government. These extreme and criminally irresponsible policies, which cannot be defended on any grounds, have made necessary and justify the military action by NATO." ==Goals==

NATO's objectives in the Kosovo conflict were stated at the North Atlantic Council meeting held at NATO headquarters in Brussels on 12 April 1999: • An end to all military action and the immediate termination of violence and repressive activities by the Milošević government; • Withdrawal of all military, police and paramilitary forces from Kosovo; • Stationing of UN peacekeeping presence in Kosovo; • Unconditional and safe return of all refugees and displaced persons; • Establishment of a political framework agreement for Kosovo based on Rambouillet Accords, in conformity with international law and the UN Charter. ==Strategy==

Operation Allied Force predominantly used a large-scale air campaign to destroy Yugoslav military infrastructure from high altitudes. After the third day of aerial bombing, NATO had destroyed almost all of its strategic military targets in Yugoslavia. Despite this, the Yugoslav army continued to function and to attack Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) insurgents inside Kosovo, mostly in the regions of Northern and Southwest Kosovo. NATO bombed strategic economic and societal targets, such as bridges, military facilities, official government facilities, and factories, using long-range cruise missiles to hit heavily defended targets, such as strategic installations in Belgrade and Pristina. The NATO air forces also targeted infrastructure, such as power plants (using the BLU-114/B "Soft-Bomb"), water-processing plants and the state-owned broadcaster. The Dutch foreign minister Jozias van Aartsen said that the strikes on Yugoslavia should be such as to weaken their military capabilities and prevent further humanitarian atrocities. Due to restrictive media laws, media in Yugoslavia carried little coverage of what its forces were doing in Kosovo, or of other countries' attitudes to the humanitarian crisis; so, few members of the public expected bombing, instead thinking that a diplomatic deal would be made. While according to Noel Malcolm: "During the first few days of the air-strike campaign, while NATO confined itself to the use of cruise missiles and high-altitude bombing, the Serbian forces inside Kosovo embarked on a massive campaign of destruction, burning down houses and using tanks and artillery to reduce entire villages to rubble." Arguments for strategic air power According to John Keegan, the capitulation of Yugoslavia in the Kosovo War marked a turning point in the history of warfare. It "proved that a war can be won by air power alone". Diplomacy had failed before the war, and the deployment of a large NATO ground force was still weeks away when Slobodan Milošević agreed to a peace deal. As for why air power should have been capable of acting alone, it has been argued by military analysts that there are several factors required. These normally come together only rarely, but all occurred during the Kosovo War: • Bombardment needs to be capable of causing destruction while minimising casualties. This causes pressure within the population to end hostilities rather than to prolong them. The exercise of precision air power in the Kosovo War is said by analysts to have provided this. • The government must be susceptible to pressure from within the population. As was demonstrated by the overthrow of Milošević a year later, the Yugoslav government was only weakly authoritarian and depended upon support from within the country. • There must be a disparity of military capabilities such that the opponent is unable to inhibit the exercise of air superiority over its territory. Serbia, a relatively small impoverished Balkan state, faced a much more powerful NATO coalition including the United Kingdom and the United States. • Carl von Clausewitz once called the "essential mass of the enemy" his "centre of gravity". Should the center of gravity be destroyed, a major factor in Yugoslav will to resist would be broken or removed. In Milošević's case, the centre of gravity was his hold on power. He manipulated hyperinflation, sanctions and restrictions in supply and demand to allow powerful business interests within Serbia to profit and they responded by maintaining him in power. The damage to the economy, which squeezed it to a point where there was little profit to be made, threatened to undermine their support for Milošević if the air campaign continued, whilst causing costly infrastructure damage. Arguments against strategic air power • Diplomacy: • According to British Lieutenant-General Mike Jackson, Russia's decision on 3 June 1999 to back the West and to urge Milošević to surrender was the single event that had "the greatest significance in ending the war". The Yugoslav capitulation came the same day. Russia relied on Western economic aid at the time, which made it vulnerable to pressure from NATO to withdraw support for Milošević. • Milošević's indictment by the UN as a war criminal (on 24 May 1999), even if it did not influence him personally, made the likelihood of Russia resuming diplomatic support less likely. • The Rambouillet Agreement of 18 March 1999, had Yugoslavia agreed to it, would have given NATO forces the right of transit, bivouac, manoeuvre, billet, and use across Serbia. By the time Milošević capitulated, NATO forces were to have access only to Kosovo proper. • The international civil presence in the province was to be under UN control which allowed for a Russian veto should Serb interests be threatened. • Concurrent ground operations: • The KLA undertook operations in Kosovo itself and had some successes against Serb forces. The Yugoslav army abandoned a border post opposite Morinë near the Yugoslav army outpost at Košare in the north west of the province. The Yugoslav army outpost at Košare had remained in Yugoslav hands throughout the war: this allowed for a supply line to be set up into the province and the subsequent taking of territory in the Junik area. The KLA also penetrated a few miles into the south-western Mount Paštrik area. But most of the province remained under Serb control. • Potential ground attack: • General Wesley Clark, Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), was "convinced" that planning and preparations for ground intervention "in particular, pushed Milošević to concede". The Yugoslav capitulation occurred on the same day that US President Bill Clinton held a widely publicised meeting with his four service chiefs to discuss options for a ground-force deployment in case the air war failed. However, France and Germany vigorously opposed a ground offensive, and had done so for some weeks, since April 1999. French estimates suggested that an invasion would need an army of 500,000 to achieve success. This left NATO, particularly the United States, with a clear view that a land operation had no support. With this in mind, the US reaffirmed its faith in the air campaign. The reluctance of NATO to use ground forces cast serious doubt on the idea that Milošević capitulated out of fear of a land invasion. ==Operation==

On 20 March 1999, OSCE Kosovo Verification Mission monitors withdrew from Kosovo citing a "steady deterioration in the security situation", and on 23 March 1999 Richard Holbrooke returned to Brussels and announced that peace talks had failed. During the ten weeks of the conflict, NATO aircraft flew over 38,000 combat missions, with a little over 10,000 of those being airstrike missions. The air operation was controlled from a NATO Combined Air Operations Centre in Vicenza, Italy. with missiles being launched from the USS Philippine Sea (CG-58), USS Gonzalez DDG-61, 's USS Albuquerque (SSN-706) & USS Miami (SSN-755), and the Royal Navy HMS Splendid (S106). The regiment was augmented by pilots from Fort Bragg's 82nd Airborne Attack Helicopter Battalion. The battalion secured AH-64 Apache attack helicopter refueling sites, and a small team forward deployed to the Albania–Kosovo border to identify targets for NATO air strikes. The campaign was initially designed to destroy Yugoslav air defences and high-value military targets. NATO military operations increasingly attacked Yugoslav units on the ground, as well as continuing the strategic bombardment. Montenegro was bombed several times, and NATO refused to prop up the precarious position of its anti-Milošević leader, Milo Đukanović. "Dual-use" targets, used by civilians and military, were attacked, including bridges across the Danube, factories, power stations, telecommunications facilities, the headquarters of Yugoslav Leftists, a political party led by Milošević's wife, and the Avala TV Tower. Some protested that these actions were violations of international law and the Geneva Conventions. NATO argued these facilities were potentially useful to the Yugoslav military and thus their bombing was justified. Showing video footage, General Wesley Clark later apologized and stated that the train had been traveling too fast and the bomb was too close to the target for it to divert in time. The German daily Frankfurter Rundschau reported in January 2000 that the NATO video had been shown at three times its real speed, giving a misleading impression of the train's speed. On 14 April, NATO planes bombed ethnic Albanians near Koriša who had been used by Yugoslav forces as human shields. Yugoslav troops took TV crews to the scene shortly after the bombing. The Yugoslav government insisted that NATO had targeted civilians. NATO claimed that the bombing was justified because the station operated as a propaganda tool for the Milošević regime. On 2 May, specialised graphite bombs were used to disable more than 70% of Serbia's electricity supply, including striking Serbia's largest power plant, TPP Nikola Tesla, near Obrenovac. The supply was restored in less than 24 hours, though civilians were asked to conserve water and power. Through to 2 June further attacks caused major power disruptions throughout Serbia, some of protracted length, affecting electricity and running water in many cities, towns, and villages. Nine major power plants were targeted and 19 power plants overall were attacked. The NATO air component commander stated that he hoped the distress of the public would undermine support for the Serbian government. On 7 May, the US bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, killing three Chinese journalists and injuring at least 20. The US defence secretary explained the cause of the error as "because the bombing instructions were based on an outdated map", but the Chinese government did not accept this explanation. The Chinese government issued a statement on the day of the bombing, stating that it was a "barbarian act". The target had been selected by the Central Intelligence Agency outside the normal NATO targeting regime. The US president Bill Clinton apologised for the bombing, saying it was an accident. The US gave China financial compensation. In April 2000, The New York Times published its own investigation, claiming to have found "no evidence that the bombing of the embassy had been a deliberate act." NATO command organisation Solana directed Clark to "initiate air operations in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia". Clark then delegated responsibility for the conduct of Operation Allied Force to the Commander-in-Chief of Allied Forces Southern Europe, who in turn delegated control to the Commander of Allied Air Forces Southern Europe, USAF Lieutenant-General Michael C. Short. Serbian Television claimed that huge columns of refugees were fleeing Kosovo because of NATO's bombing, not Yugoslav military operations. Air combat in Ugljevik, Bosnia, on 25 March 1999 , the commander 3rd battery of the Yugoslav 250th Missile Brigade, which shot down a NATO F-117 Nighthawk with the S-125 Neva An important portion of the war involved combat between the Yugoslav Air Force and the opposing air forces from NATO. United States Air Force (USAF) F-15s and F-16s aircraft flying from Italian airforce bases attacked the defending Yugoslav fighters, mainly MiG-29s, which were severely outmatched by the modern and more advanced F-15 and F-16's due to having obsolete radar systems and missiles, and were in poor condition due to a lack of spare parts and maintenance. Other NATO forces also contributed to the air war. Air combat incidents: • During the night of 24/25 March 1999: Yugoslav Air Force scrambled five MiG-29s to counter the initial attacks. Two fighters that took off from Niš Airport were vectored to intercept targets over southern Serbia and Kosovo were dealt with by NATO fighters. The MiG-29 flown by Maj. Dragan Ilić was damaged; he landed with one engine out and the aircraft was later expended as a decoy. The second MiG, flown by Maj. Iljo Arizanov, was shot down by an USAF F-15C piloted by Lt. Colonel Cesar Rodriguez. A pair from Batajnica Air Base (Maj. Nebojša Nikolić and Maj. Ljubiša Kulačin) were engaged by USAF Capt. Mike Shower who shot down Nikolić while Kulačin evaded several missiles fired at him, while fighting to bring his malfunctioning systems back to working order. Eventually realising that he could not do anything, and with Batajnica AB under attack, Kulačin diverted to Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport, hiding his aircraft under the tail of a parked airliner. • On the morning of 25 March, Maj. Slobodan Tešanović stalled his MiG-29 while landing on Ponikve Airbase after a re-basing flight. He ejected safely. This was the first and, as of 2024, the only time a stealth aircraft has been shot down by hostile ground fire in combat; the only other stealth aircraft in operation is the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber, only two of which have been lost, with both incidents being accidents. • Several times between 5 and 7 April 1999, Yugoslav MiG-29s were scrambled to intercept NATO aircraft, but turned back due to malfunctions. • On 30 April, some US sources claim that a second F-117A was damaged by a surface-to-air missile. On the same day, an A-10 Thunderbolt II was damaged by a Strela 2 shoulder-mounted SAM over Kosovo and had to make an emergency landing at Skopje International Airport in Macedonia, • On 4 May, a Yugoslav MiG-29, piloted by Lt. Colonel Milenko Pavlović, commander of the 204th Fighter Aviation Wing, was shot down at a low altitude over his hometown Valjevo by two USAF F-16s. Whilst attempting to chase A raid returning after bombing the town. The falling aircraft was possibly hit as well by Strela 2 fired by Yugoslav troops. Pavlović was killed. • On 11 May, an A-10 was lightly damaged over Kosovo by a 9K35 Strela 10. • During the war NATO lost two AH-64 Apache strike helicopters (one on 26 April and the other on 4 May in Albania) near the border with Yugoslavia, in training accidents resulting in death of two US Army crew members. Air defence suppression operations Suppression of Enemy Air Defences (SEAD) operations for NATO were principally carried out by the US Air Force, with 50- F-16CJ Block 50 Fighting Falcons, and the US Navy and Marines, with thirty EA-6B Prowlers. The F-16CJs carried AGM-88 HARM anti-radiation missiles which would home in on and destroy any active Yugoslav radar systems, while the Prowlers provided radar jamming assistance (though they could carry HARMs as well). Additional support came in the form of Italian and German Tornado ECRs which also carried HARMs. USAF Compass Call EC-130s were used to intercept and jam Yugoslav communications, while RC-135s conducted bomb damage assessment. The standard tactic for F-16CJs was for two pairs to come at a suspected air defence site from opposite directions, ensuring total coverage of the target area, and relaying information to incoming strike craft so they could adjust their flight path accordingly. Where possible, NATO attempted to proactively destroy air defence sites, using F-16CGs and F-15E Strike Eagles carrying conventional munitions including cluster bombs, AGM-130 boosted bombs, and AGM-154 Joint Standoff Weapon missiles. Many NATO aircraft made use of new towed decoys designed to lure away any missiles fired at them. Reportedly, NATO also for the first time employed cyberwarfare to target Yugoslav air defence computer systems. A number of deficiencies in NATO's SEAD operations were revealed during the course of the bombing campaign. The EA-6Bs were noticeably slower than other aircraft, limiting their effectiveness in providing support, and land-based Prowlers flying out of Aviano Air Base were forced to carry extra fuel tanks instead of HARMs due to the distances involved. Moreover, the US Air Force had allowed its electronic warfare branch to atrophy in the years after the Gulf War. Training exercises were fewer and less rigorous than before, while veterans with electronic warfare experience were allowed to retire with no replacement. The results were less than satisfactory: response times to engaging a SAM threat actually increased from the Gulf War, and electronic warfare wings could no longer reprogram their own jamming pods but had to send them elsewhere for the task. Further difficulties came in the form of airspace restrictions, which forced NATO aircraft into predictable flight paths, and rules of engagement which prevented NATO from targeting certain sites for fear of collateral damage. In particular this applied to early-warning radars located in Montenegro, which remained operational during the campaign and gave Yugoslav forces advanced warning of incoming NATO air raids. The Yugoslav integrated air defence system (IADS) was extensive, including underground command sites and buried landlines, which allowed for information to be shared between systems. Active radar in one area could target NATO aircraft for SAMs and AAA in another area with no active radar, further limiting NATO's ability to target air defence weapons. radar facility. During the course of the campaign, NATO and Yugoslav forces engaged in a "cat-and-mouse" game which made suppressing the air defences difficult. Yugoslav SAM operators would turn their radars on for no longer than 20 seconds, allowing little chance for NATO anti-radiation missions to lock on to their emissions. In response, over half of NATO's anti-radiation missiles were preemptively fired at suspected air defence sites so that if a radar system did become active the missiles would be able to lock on more quickly. ==NATO forces==

While not directly related to the hostilities, on 12 March 1999 the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland joined NATO by depositing instruments of accession in accordance with Article 10 of the North Atlantic Treaty at a ceremony in Independence, Missouri. A large element of the operation was the air forces of NATO, relying heavily on the US Air Force and US Navy using the F-16, F-15, F-117, F-14, F/A-18, EA-6B, B-52, KC-135, KC-10, AWACS, and JSTARS from bases throughout Europe and from aircraft carriers in the region. by the Yugoslav air force on 27 March 1999, near the village of Buđanovci, Serbia The French Navy and Air Force operated the Super Etendard and the Mirage 2000. The Italian Air Force operated with 34 Tornado, twelve F-104, twelve AMX, two B-707, and the Italian Navy operated with Harrier II's. The UK's Royal Air Force operated the Harrier GR7 and Tornado ground attack jets as well as an array of support aircraft. Belgian, Danish, Dutch, Norwegian, Portuguese and Turkish air forces operated F-16s. The Spanish Air Force deployed F/A-18s and KC-130s. The Canadian Air Force deployed a total of 18 CF-18s, enabling them to be responsible for 10% of all bombs dropped in the operation. The fighters were armed with both guided and unguided "dumb" munitions, including the Paveway series of laser-guided bombs. The bombing campaign marked the first time the German Air Force actively attacking targets since World War II. The US B-2 Spirit stealth bomber saw its first successful combat role in Operation Allied Force, striking from its home base in the contiguous United States. Even with this air power, noted a RAND Corporation study, "NATO never fully succeeded in neutralising the enemy's radar-guided SAM threat". Space Operation Allied Force incorporated the first large-scale use of satellites as a direct method of weapon guidance. The collective bombing was the first combat use of the Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) kit, which uses an inertial-guidance and GPS-guided tail fin to increase the accuracy of conventional gravity munitions up to 95%. The JDAM kits were outfitted on the B-2s. The AGM-154 Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW) had been previously used in Operation Southern Watch earlier in 1999. Naval NATO naval forces operated in the Adriatic Sea. The UK's Royal Navy sent a substantial task force that included the aircraft carrier , which operated Sea Harrier FA2 fighter jets. The RN also deployed destroyers and frigates, and the Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) provided support vessels, including the aviation training/primary casualty receiving ship . It was the first time the RN used cruise missiles in combat, fired from the nuclear fleet submarine . The Italian Navy provided a naval task force that included the aircraft carrier , a frigate () and a submarine (). The US Navy provided a naval task force that included the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, , and the amphibious assault ship . The French Navy provided the aircraft carrier and escorts. The German Navy deployed the frigate Rheinland-Pfalz and Oker, an , in the naval operations. The Royal Netherlands Navy sent the submarine to uphold trade embargoes off the coast of Yugoslavia. Army in Belgrade NATO ground forces included a US battalion from the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division. The unit was deployed in March 1999 to Albania in support of the bombing campaign where the battalion secured the Tirana airfield, Apache helicopter refueling sites, established a forward-operating base to prepare for Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) strikes and offensive ground operations, and deployed a small team with an AN/TPQ-36 Firefinder radar system to the Albania/Kosovo border where it acquired targets for NATO air strikes. Immediately after the bombing campaign, the battalion was refitted back at Tirana airfield and issued orders to move into Kosovo as the initial entry force in support of Operation Joint Guardian. Task Force Hawk was also deployed. In March, Task Force Hunter, a US surveillance unit based upon the IAI RQ-5 Hunter drone "A" Company from a Forces Command (FORSCOM) Corps Military Intelligence Brigade (MI Bde) was deployed to Camp Able Sentry, Macedonia to provide real-time intelligence on Yugoslav forces inside Kosovo. They flew a total of 246 sorties, with five drones lost to enemy fire. A German Army drone battery based at Tetovo was tasked with a similar mission. From December 1998 to July 1999, German forces used CL-289 UAVs to fly 237 sorties over Yugoslav positions, with six drones lost to hostile fire. ==Aftermath==

Civilian casualties Human Rights Watch concluded "that as few as 489 and as many as 528 Yugoslav civilians were killed in the ninety separate incidents in Operation Allied Force". Refugees were among the victims. Between 278 and 317 of the casualties, nearly 60% of the total number, were in Kosovo. In Serbia, 201 civilians were killed (five in Vojvodina) and eight died in Montenegro. Almost 2/3 (303 to 352) of the total registered civilian deaths occurred in twelve incidents where ten or more civilian deaths were confirmed. A further three US soldiers were ambushed and taken as prisoners of war by Yugoslav special forces while riding on a Humvee on a surveillance mission along the Macedonian border with Kosovo. A study of the campaign reports that Yugoslav air defences may have fired up to 700 missiles at NATO aircraft, and that the B-1 bomber crews counted at least twenty surface-to-air missiles fired at them during their first 50 missions. Yugoslavia's 3rd Army commander, Lt. General Nebojsa Pavkovic, claimed that Yugoslav forces shot down 51 NATO aircraft, though no other source verified these numbers. The government of Serbia also lists 5,173 combatants as having been wounded. NATO later revised this estimation to 1,200 soldiers and policemen killed. Throughout the war; 181 NATO strikes were reported against tanks, 317 against armoured personnel vehicles, 800 against other military vehicles, and 857 against artillery and mortars, after a total of 38,000 sorties, or 200 sorties per day at the beginning of the conflict and over 1,000 at the end of the conflict. When it came to alleged hits, 93 tanks (out of 600), 153 APCs, 339 other vehicles, and 389 artillery systems were believed to have been disabled or destroyed with certainty. The Department of Defence and Joint Chief of Staff had earlier provided a figure of 120 tanks, 220 APCs, and 450 artillery systems, and a Newsweek piece published around a year later stated that only 14 tanks, 12 self-propelled guns, 18 APCs, and 20 artillery systems had actually been obliterated, However, this reporting was heavily criticised, as it was based on the number of vehicles found during the assessment of the Munitions Effectiveness Assessment Team, which wasn't interested in the effectiveness of anything but the ordnance, and surveyed sites that hadn't been visited in nearly three-months, at a time when the most recent of strikes were four-weeks old. Other misdirection techniques were used to disguise targets including replacing the batteries of fired missiles with mock-ups, as well as burning tires beside major bridges and painting roads in different colors to emit varying degrees of heat, thus guiding NATO missiles away from vital infrastructure. It was only in the later stages of the campaign that strategic targets such as bridges and buildings were attacked in any systematic way, causing significant disruption and economic damage. This stage of the campaign led to controversial incidents, most notably the bombing of the People's Republic of China embassy in Belgrade where three Chinese reporters were killed and twenty injured, which NATO claimed was a mistake. In 2000, a year after the bombing ended, Group 17 published a survey dealing with damage and economic restoration. The report concluded that direct damage from the bombing totalled $3.8 billion, not including Kosovo, of which only 5% had been repaired at that time. In 2006, a group of economists from the G17 Plus party estimated the total economic losses resulting from the bombing were about $29.6 billion. This figure included indirect economic damage, loss of human capital, and loss of GDP. The bombing caused damage to bridges, roads and railway tracks, as well as to 25,000 homes, 69 schools and 176 cultural monuments. Furthermore, 19 hospitals and 20 health centers were damaged, including the University Hospital Center Dr Dragiša Mišović. NATO bombing also resulted in the damaging of medieval monuments, such as Gračanica Monastery, the Patriarchate of Peć, and the Visoki Dečani, which are on the UNESCO's World Heritage list today. The Avala Tower, one of the most popular symbols of Belgrade, Serbia's capital, was destroyed during the bombing. The use of Depleted Uranium ammunition was noted by the UNEP, which cautioned about the risks for future groundwater contamination and recounted the "decontamination measures conducted by Yugoslavian, Serbian and Montenegrin authorities." In total, between 9 and 11 tonnes of depleted uranium munitions were dropped across all of Yugoslavia, with payloads delivered by A-10 Thunderbolts and Tomahawk cruise missiles. In 2001, a study of uranium content across soil samples across Yugoslavia discovered highest concentration at Cape Arza, an area of land at the entrance to the Bay of Kotor. Political outcome In early June, a Finnish-Russian mediation team headed by Martti Ahtisaari and Viktor Chernomyrdin traveled to Belgrade to meet with Milošević for talks on an agreement that would suspend air strikes. When NATO agreed Kosovo would be politically supervised by the United Nations, and that there would be no independence referendum for 3 years, the Yugoslav government agreed to withdraw its forces from Kosovo, under strong diplomatic pressure from Russia, and the bombing was suspended on 10 June. The Yugoslav Army and NATO signed the Kumanovo Agreement. Its provisions were considerably less draconian than what was presented at Rambouillet, most notably Appendix B was removed from the agreement. Appendix B called for NATO forces to have free movement and to conduct military operations within the entire territory of Yugoslavia (including Serbia). The Yugoslav government had used it as a primary reason why they had not signed the Rambouillet accords, viewing it as a threat to its sovereignty. The war ended 11 June, and Russian paratroopers seized Slatina airport to become the first peacekeeping force in the war zone. Yugoslav President Milošević survived the conflict, however, he was indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia along with a number of other senior Yugoslav political and military figures. His indictment led to Yugoslavia as a whole being treated as a pariah by much of the international community because Milošević was subject to arrest if he left Yugoslavia. Thousands were killed during the conflict, and hundreds of thousands more fled from the province to other parts of the country and to the surrounding countries. Most of the Albanian refugees returned home within a few weeks or months. However, much of the non-Albanian population again fled to other parts of Serbia or to protected enclaves within Kosovo following the operation. Albanian guerrilla activity spread into other parts of Serbia and to the neighbouring Republic of Macedonia, but subsided in 2001. The non-Albanian population has since diminished further following fresh outbreaks of inter-communal conflict and harassment. In December 2002, Elizabeth II approved the awarding of the Battle Honour "Kosovo" to squadrons of the RAF that participated in the conflict. These were: Nos 1, 7, 8, 9, 14, 23, 31, 51, 101, and 216 squadrons. This was also extended to the Canadian squadrons deployed to the operation, 425 and 441. Ten years after the operation, the Republic of Kosovo declared independence with a new Republic of Kosovo government. KFOR On 12 June, Kosovo Force (KFOR) began entering Kosovo. Its mandate among other things was to deter hostilities and establish a secure environment, including public safety and civil order. A NATO force, KFOR had been preparing to conduct combat operations, but in the end, its mission was only peacekeeping. It was based upon the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps headquarters commanded by then Lieutenant General Mike Jackson of the British Army. It consisted of British forces (a brigade built from 4th Armoured and 5th Airborne Brigades), a French Army Brigade, a German Army brigade, which entered from the west while all the other forces advanced from the south, and Italian Army and US Army brigades. soldiers patrol southern Kosovo The US contribution, known as the Initial Entry Force, was led by the US 1st Armoured Division. Subordinate units included: TF 1–35 Armour from Baumholder, Germany; the 2nd Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment from Fort Bragg, North Carolina; the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit from Camp Lejeune, North Carolina; the 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment from Schweinfurt, Germany; and Echo Troop, 4th Cavalry Regiment, also from Schweinfurt, Germany. Also attached to the US force was the Greek Army's 501st Mechanised Infantry Battalion. The initial US forces established their area of operation around the towns of Uroševac, the future Camp Bondsteel, and Gnjilane, at Camp Monteith, and spent four months—the start of a stay which continues to date—establishing order in the southeast sector of Kosovo. The first NATO troops to enter Pristina on 12 June 1999 were Norwegian special forces from the Forsvarets Spesialkommando (FSK) and soldiers from the British Special Air Service 22 S.A.S, although to NATO's diplomatic embarrassment Russian troops arrived first at the airport. The Norwegian soldiers from FSK were the first to come in contact with the Russian troops at the airport. FSK's mission was to level the negotiating field between the belligerent parties, and to fine-tune the detailed, local deals needed to implement the peace deal between the Serbians and the Kosovo Albanians. During the initial incursion, no resistance was met, although three US soldiers from the Initial Entry Force were killed in accidents. Following the military campaign, the involvement of Russian peacekeepers proved to be tense and challenging to the NATO Kosovo force. The Russians expected to have an independent sector of Kosovo, only to be unhappily surprised with the prospect of operating under NATO command. Without prior communication or coordination with NATO, Russian peacekeeping forces entered Kosovo from Bosnia and seized Pristina International Airport. In 2010, James Blunt in an interview described how his unit was given the assignment of securing the Pristina in advance of the 30,000-strong peacekeeping force and the Russian army had moved in and taken control of the airport before his unit's arrival. As the first officer on the scene, Blunt shared a part in the difficult task of addressing the potentially violent international incident. His own account tells of how he refused to follow orders from NATO command to attack the Russians. Outpost Gunner was established on a high point in the Preševo Valley by Echo Battery 1/161 Field Artillery in an attempt to monitor and assist with peacekeeping efforts in the Russian sector. Operating under the support of 2/3 Field Artillery, 1st Armoured Division, the Battery was able to successfully deploy and continuously operate a Firefinder Radar which allowed the NATO forces to keep a closer watch on activities in the sector and the Preševo Valley. Eventually a deal was struck whereby Russian forces operated as a unit of KFOR but not under the NATO command structure. ==Attitudes towards the campaign==

In favor of the campaign near ski slopes at Kopaonik Those who were involved in the NATO airstrikes have stood by the decision to take such action. US President Bill Clinton's Secretary of Defense, William Cohen, said that, "The appalling accounts of mass killing in Kosovo and the pictures of refugees fleeing Serb oppression for their lives makes it clear that this is a fight for justice over genocide." Five months after the conclusion of NATO bombing, when around one third of reported gravesites had been visited thus far, 2,108 bodies had been found, with an estimated total of between 5,000 and 12,000 at that time; Since the war's end, after most of the mass graves had been searched, the body count has remained less than half of the 10,000 plus estimated. It is unclear how many of these were victims of war crimes. On 11 March 1999, the US House of Representatives passed a non-binding resolution by a vote of 219–191 conditionally approving of President Clinton's plan to commit 4,000 troops to the NATO peacekeeping mission. The media watchdog group Accuracy in Media charged the alliance with distorting the situation in Kosovo and lying about the number of civilian deaths to justify US involvement in the conflict. Other journalists have asserted that NATO's campaign triggered or accelerated the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, which was the opposite of the alliance's stated aim, as prior to it Yugoslav forces limited their activities. In an interview with Radio-Television Serbia journalist Danilo Mandić on 25 April 2006, Noam Chomsky referred to the foreword to John Norris' 2005 book Collision Course: NATO, Russia, and Kosovo, in which Strobe Talbott, the Deputy Secretary of State under President Clinton and the leading US negotiator during the war, had written that "It was Yugoslavia's resistance to the broader trends of political and economic reformnot the plight of Kosovar Albaniansthat best explains NATO's war." On 31 May 2006, Brad DeLong rebutted Chomsky and quoted from elsewhere in the passage which Chomsky had cited, Prime Minister of India Atal Bihari Vajpayee condemned the NATO bombing, and demanded a halt on the airstrikes and for the matter to be taken up by the United Nations. Since Yugoslavia was part of the Non-Aligned Movement, he announced that he would raise the issue at the forum. At a speech in a political rally in May 1999, Vajpayee said that "NATO is blindly bombing Yugoslavia" and "There is a dance of destruction going on there [Yugoslavia]. Thousands of people rendered homeless. And the United Nations is a mute witness to all this. Is NATO's work to prevent war or to fuel one?" Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Ariel Sharon criticised the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia as an act of "brutal interventionism" and said Israel was against "aggressive actions" and "hurting innocent people" and hoped "the sides will return to the negotiating table as soon as possible". On 29 April 1999, Yugoslavia filed a complaint at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague against ten NATO member countries (Belgium, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Canada, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and the United States) and alleged that the military operation had violated Article 9 of the 1948 Genocide Convention and that Yugoslavia had jurisdiction to sue through Article 38, para. 5 of Rules of Court. On 2 June, the ICJ ruled in an 8–4 vote that Yugoslavia had no such jurisdiction. Four of the ten nations (the United States, France, Italy and Germany) had withdrawn entirely from the court's "optional clause." Because Yugoslavia filed its complaint only three days after accepting the terms of the court's optional clause, the ICJ ruled that there was no jurisdiction to sue either Britain or Spain, as the two nations had only agreed to submit to ICJ lawsuits if a suing party had filed their complaint a year or more after accepting the terms of the optional clause. The report was rejected by NATO as "baseless and ill-founded". A week before the report was released, Carla Del Ponte, the chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) had told the UN Security Council that her investigation into NATO actions found no basis for charging NATO or its leaders with war crimes. Believing that the US bombing of China's embassy in Belgrade was intentional, Chinese leadership worried that China was significantly lacking in leverage against the United States. To reduce its gap in strategic leverage, China focused on developing "information age" weapons including counterspace capabilities and cyberspace capabilities, and enhanced its efforts to develop precision missiles. Substantial protests were held in Greece, and demonstrations were also held in Italian cities, Moscow, London, Toronto, Berlin, Timișoara, Stuttgart, Salzburg and Skopje. ==See also==