UÇK

Military precursors to the KLA began in the late 1980s with armed resistance to Yugoslav police trying to take Albanian activists in custody.[14] By the early 1990s there were attacks on police forces and secret-service officials who abused Albanian civilians.[14] By mid-1998 the KLA was involved in frontal battle though it was outnumbered and outgunned.[14] Conflict escalated from 1997 onward due to the Yugoslavian army retaliating with a crackdown in the region which resulted in population displacements.[15][16] 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.[17][18] NATO supported the KLA and intervened on its behalf in March 1999.[19]