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From Jane's Defense Weekly:
08/24/01 Who are the NLA? By Tim Ripley Over the past eight months the ethnic Albanian National Liberation Army (NLA), or Ushtria Clirimitore Kombetare (UCK), has grown from a group of less than 200 guerrillas into a fighting force of 3,000 fighters, controlling hundreds of square miles of northern and western Macedonia. So far the group has withstood several Macedonian army and police offensives and bounced back to seize even more territory. The haphazard bombardment of Albanian villages by Macedonian aircraft, helicopter gunships and artillery has proved a boon to the NLA, prompting a steady stream of recruits and huge cash donations from the Albanian Diaspora in Western Europe and North America. By mid-August, when NATO committed itself to intervening in the conflict to collect rebel arms as part of the Ohrid peace agreement, the NLA had seized control of a huge swathe of territory and put the poorly led and equipped government forces firmly on the defensive. Origins The origins of the current conflict stretch back to the secession of Macedonia from the old Federal Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia in 1991. While Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina were ravaged by war during the first half of the 1990s, Macedonia managed to gain its independence and remain largely peaceful, even though relations between the country's 600,000-strong ethnic Albanian population and the 1.4 million ethnic Macedonian majority were tense. The event that changed everything was the revolt by ethnic Albanians in the Serbia-controlled province of Kosovo in 1998. This set in train sequence of events that threaten to overwhelm Macedonia's precarious peace. The radicalisation of the Albanian population of Kosovo during the mid-1990s led to the growth of Albanian nationalism throughout the former Yugoslavia - in Kosovo, Macedonia, southern Serbia and Montenegro. Under the banner of the Popular Movement for Kosova (LPK), ethnic Albanians spread around the Yugoslav successor republics began demanding their own state or, as it became known, Greater Albania. Exiled ethnic Albanians living in Western Europe and North America rallied to the cause, setting up the Homeland Calling fund to finance the revolt of the LPK's armed wing, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), or Ushtria Clirimitore e Kosovoes (UCK). Many Albanians from Macedonia also joined the fight against the Serbs, rising to senior positions in the LPK and KLA. At the height of the war in early 1999 some 40,000 men were estimated to fighting with the KLA either inside Kosovo or along the Albanian border. The force officially disbanded in September 1999 under pressure from NATO and was reborn as the Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC), or Trupat Mbroysat Kosoves (TMK), with a disaster relief role. The Albanian nationalist cause underwent a resurgence in the autumn of 2000 for two main reasons. The demise of the regime of Slobodan Milosevic in Yugoslavia led to fears that the international community would do a deal with the new government in Belgrade to deny Kosovo its independence. At the same time, the poor showing of former LPK and KLA leaders, such as Ramush Hajredinaj, in the October 2000 Kosovo administrative elections meant many of them were looking for ways to re-invigorate the nationalist cause. This, they believed, had been betrayed by Pristina-based figures such as Hashim Thaci, who are now closely identified with the international community. The Ushtria Clirimitore e Presevo, Medvedja, Bujanovic (UCPMB), or Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedja, Bujanovic, stepped up its insurgency in southern Serbia. Meanwhile, plans were laid to mount a major uprising in Macedonia. The NATO decision in February 2001 to hand back the Ground Security Zone (GSZ), or buffer zone, along Kosovo's boundary with Serbia to Yugoslav control further confirmed Albanian suspicions that the international community was set to betray Kosovo to Belgrade. NLA aims With suspicions that their cause was about to be betrayed, many former KLA members with family roots in Macedonia therefore decided the time was ripe to stage their own revolution. This would fulfil two aims: freeing their countrymen from the rule of the Skopje government; and driving Albanians in Kosovo back to supporting the nationalist cause. Members of the Homeland Calling organisation provided funding and allowed the NLA access to the covert arms dumps in Kosovo and Albania under their control. A few hundred former KLA fighters of Macedonian origin began training and organising in the summer of 2000, establishing training bases and arms caches along the mountainous border between Kosovo and Macedonia. Albanian villagers on both sides of the border have close family ties, and they proved to be a fertile source of recruits. The group's strategy was first to stage a series of hit-and-run attacks on Macedonian police and army bases to advertise their existence and attract recruits. Then a more widespread series of attacks would be launched to secure control of a 'liberated zone', which would became a haven for fighters battling to free ethnic Albanian regions of Macedonia. Leadership and structure The NLA leadership at first kept its activities highly secret to prevent counter action by either the NATO-led Kosovo Force (KFOR) or the Macedonian security forces. During late 2000 rumours began circulating of a group calling itself the Armaj Kombetare Shiqitare (AKSh), or Albanian National Army (ANA), mounting attacks on Macedonian police posts along the border with Kosovo, but this group remained in the shadows and was subsequently eclipsed by the NLA in January 2001. The ANA group grew out of a split within the ranks of the LPK in the late 1990s and has since claimed responsibility for a series of attacks in Macedonia, culminating in the 8 August truck ambush in which at least 10 Macedonian soldiers died. Inside Macedonia it has little influence among local ethnic Albanian commanders, who all universally claim allegiance to the NLA, but it remains an indication that the leadership of the rebels could be divided about how to go forward. The choice of the name, NLA or UCK, by the Macedonian-based rebel group is no accident and it is meant to signify the continuity of the struggle from the original KLA. The leadership of the NLA is still shrouded in mystery, with its leaders and spokesmen adopting noms de guerre when they meet Western journalists. So far a number - including Emrush Xhemali, the former security chief of KLA leader Hashim Thaci - have been identified as senior leaders. The ultra-nationalists' Swiss-based leader, Fazli Veliu, has been named in media reports as the chief financier of the rebellion. He remains president of the LPK. The renamed Liria Kombetare (National Freedom) fund has replaced Homeland Calling as the main source of money for the NLA. Adverts for fundraising events are regularly placed in the Swiss-based Albanian newspaper Bota Sot. Vaxhid Sedjiu is the LPK's director of fundraising in Switzerland. Aid money is taken to Kosovo and Macedonia by personal couriers. Western intelligence agencies believe the NLA has amassed a war chest of $60 million from the Albanian Diaspora over the last six months. Inside Macedonia the leadership is centred on the mountains above Tetovo in the village of Sipkovica. Ali Ahmeti, a KLA founder of Macedonian origin who has links to Ramush Hajredinaj, has taken on the role of political spokesman and negotiator with NATO. A senior KLA commander, Gezim Ostremi, deserted from his post as TMK chief of staff early in 2001 to take over as NLA chief of staff. Former Macedonian member of parliament Hisni Shaqiri also has a political/propaganda role. Over in the east, in the Black Mountains, Commander Mala is the main leader, along with his deputy, Commander Sokoli. This group has strong links to the family of murdered moderate KLA leader Commander Dreni from Prizren in Kosovo. Commander Hoxha, another KLA veteran, has a roving role of 'NLA inspector', overseeing major operations such as the seizure of Aracinovo in June. Control of territory The first incident attributed to the NLA was a mortar attack on a remote Macedonian police station at Tearce on 22 January 2001, which left one policemen dead and three injured. A month later NLA units and the Macedonian police fought a two-hour gun battle in the mountain-top village of Tanusevci on the border with Kosovo in the heart of the Black Mountain region. It is believed this was an unplanned incident after a NLA column was intercepted by the Macedonian police. As fighting escalated, the NLA seized a number of villages in the area. Only around 200 NLA fighters were believed to have been involved in the fighting at this stage. Over the next six months the NLA expanded massively as it gained control of even more territory. By mid April it overtly controlled the Black Mountain area north of Skopje, centred on the villages of Lipkovo, Slupcane and Nikustak. The heartland of the NLA is the high mountains to the west of Tetovo, along the Kosovo and Albanian borders. In July the NLA swept down from the mountains into the predominantly Albanian city of Tetovo and into the valley to the east. A string of Albanian villages rallied to the cause and NLA fighters moved on to the Zeden feature between Tetovo and Skopje, capturing the border town of Raduse. These offensives left government forces isolated in Tetovo and a number of small garrisons around the town and at Vratnica, which could only be re-supplied by helicopter. Until the 8 August ambush the NLA chose not to cut the main Tetovo-Skopje highway, but its units demonstrated they had the ability to do so if necessary. To conduct these operations the NLA massively expanded its force structure to absorb the new recruits entering its ranks from within Macedonia, Kosovo, Albania and the Diaspora. By early August the NLA boasted six brigades: 111, 113 and 114 Brigades were operating the Black Mountain region; 112 Brigade is in control of a number of 'battalions' in Tetevo; to the south, 116 Brigade is based around Gostivar, although it has not so far overtly attempted to take control of the town (which has an 80% Albanian population); while 115 Brigade is believed to be located in Albanian villages overlooking the capital, Skopje, and its vital power station. The NLA has pushed units far into the mountains south of Skopje, although they have so far not overtly declared control of territory in this strategic region. NLA brigades are a mix of KLA veterans, who provide the command cadre and experienced fighters, and local volunteers integrated into the ranks. Local men and boys are then recruited to provide logistic support, medical help and other administrative tasks. Villagers, meanwhile, provide food for the fighters. Diaspora groups linked to localities provide the funds and expertise to buy and smuggle arms to specific brigades. The NLA arsenal NLA arms have come from a variety of sources, including the hundreds of thousands of weapons looted from Albanian army armouries in 1997. West and Eastern European black markets have been tapped, as well some unusual sources. Uniforms have been made in factories in Yugoslavia and black market purchases made from corrupt officials in the Zastava arms factory in Serbia. There have also been reports of truck convoys into Macedonia from Bulgaria. During the failed Macedonian police attack to relieve Radusa in early August, government forces had to abandon a T-55 tank and two armoured personnel carriers (a TM 170 and a BTR), which were captured by the NLA and pressed into service against their former owners. The main arms import routes are via Albania. KFOR's Operation Eagle has recently begun to be a major headache for the NLA, which has lost 2000 weapons and 180,000 rounds ammunition to NATO patrols. The anarchic nature of Albania, however, means the NLA has a very secure supply line to western Macedonia. Estimates of the NLA arsenal are very difficult to make, with many Western intelligence agencies completely in the dark about its activities. Weapons known to be in the NLA inventory include 9M32 Strella-2M (SA-7B 'Grail' Mod 1) manportable surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), 120mm and 82mm mortars, rocket-propelled grenades, light anti-tank rockets, 12.7mm heavy machine guns as well as assorted light machine guns and AK-type assault rifles. Land mines and demolition charges have also been used to great effect. The NLA has managed to hold on to all the territory it has captured in spite of heavy government attacks, killing just under 70 members of the security forces for the loss of only a couple of dozen of its fighters at the most. As far as heavy weapons are concerned, it is estimated by Western sources that the NLA has around 40 mortars and just a handful of SAMs. Small arms are impossible to measure, since every Albanian man in most northern and western villages possesses some kind of weapon. The NLA has been estimated to have 2,000 hardcore fighters and a similar number of volunteers, all of whom have access to some type of weapon. Conclusion With the signing of the Ohrid peace deal the NLA has reached a crucial turning point. Over the next few weeks it will have to make crucial decisions on whether it is to go along with the accord and disarm, before entering the internal Macedonian political process, or if it is to continue its struggle for wider Albanian nationalist aims. What is clear is that it is now making these decisions from a position of strength. With Western policymakers now having to take the NLA into account, it has proved it can shape events in the Balkans. |
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