Adem Jashari

Adem Jashari (born Fazli Jashari; 28 November 1955 – 7 March 1998) was one of the founders of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), a Kosovo Albanian separatist militia which fought for the secession of Kosovo from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia during the 1990s.

Adem Shaban Jashari was born in the village of Prekaz, SAP Kosovo, SFR Yugoslavia on 28 November 1955 as Fazli Jashari.

Descended from Kosovo Albanian guerrillas who had fought Yugoslav forces decades prior, he was raised on Albanian war stories and was rarely seen without a gun.

According to the journalist Tim Judah, Jashari "hated the Serbs, and although he was one of the KLA’s early recruits, he was no ideological guerrilla."

Drenica is a hilly region in central Kosovo inhabited almost exclusively by Kosovo Albanians.

Prior to the Kosovo War, the government of Yugoslavia considered it "the hotbed of Albanian terrorism."

Jashari was a farmer.

Beginning in 1991, Jashari participated in attacks against the Serbian police before travelling to Albania to receive military training.

In 1991, he participated in an armed uprising against the Yugoslav authorities in Kosovo.

During this period, a Kosovo Albanian irredentist organization that came to be known as the Kosovo Liberation Army first emerged.

From 1991 to 1992, Jashari and about 100 other ethnic Albanians wishing to fight for the independence of Kosovo underwent military training in the municipality of Labinot-Mal in Albania.

Afterwards, Jashari and other ethnic Albanians committed several acts of sabotage aimed at the Serbian administrative apparatus in Kosovo.

Attempting to capture or kill him, Serbian police surrounded Jashari and his older brother, Hamëz, at their home in Prekaz on 30 December 1991.

In the ensuing siege, large numbers of Kosovo Albanians flocked to Prekaz, pressuring the police to withdraw from the village.

Arrested in 1993, he was released at the behest of the Albanian Army and later returned to Kosovo, where he continued launching attacks against the Yugoslav establishment.

While in Albania, he was arrested in 1993 by the government of Sali Berisha and sent to jail in Tirana before being released alongside other Kosovo Albanian militants at the demand of the Albanian Army.

With the Yugoslav forces now considering Prekaz a "no-go" area, Jashari launched several attacks over the next several years.

These targeted the Yugoslav Army (VJ) and Serbian police in Kosovo.

In July 1997, he was convicted of terrorism in absentia by a Yugoslav court; the trial was subsequently criticized by Human Rights Watch.

Jashari was convicted of terrorism in absentia by a Yugoslav court on 11 July 1997.

Human Rights Watch subsequently described the trial, in which fourteen other Kosovo Albanians were also convicted, as "[failing] to conform to international standards."

After several unsuccessful attempts to capture or kill him, Serbian police launched an attack against Jashari's home in Prekaz in March 1998.

The battle that followed resulted in the deaths of 57 members of Jashari's family, including that of Jashari, his wife, brother and son.

Seen as the "father of the KLA", Jashari is considered a symbol of Kosovar independence by ethnic Albanians.

Pursuing Jashari for the murder of a Serb policeman, Yugoslav forces again attempted to assault the Jashari compound in Prekaz on 22 January 1998.

With Jashari not present, thousands of Kosovo Albanians descended on Prekaz and again succeeded in pushing the Serbs out of the village and its surroundings.

The next month, a small unit of the KLA ambushed Serbian policemen.

Four Serbs were killed and two were injured in the ensuing clashes.

At dawn on 5 March 1998, the KLA launched an attack against a police patrol in Prekaz.

In response to this attack, the Yugoslavs organized a "full-scale revenge mission" involving tanks, APCs and helicopters.

They were backed up by artillery from a nearby ammunition factory.

With the intention of "eliminating the suspects and their families," the police attacked villages that had been identified as KLA strongholds, including Likošane and Ćirez.

Human Rights Watch noted that "special police forces attacked without warning, firing indiscriminately at women, children and other noncombatants."

KLA members and their families subsequently fled to Jashari's compound.

Here, the police invited Jashari to surrender, giving him a deadline of two hours in which to respond.

During this period, a number of families left the compound.

Jashari remained, ordering his family members to stay inside and telling his militants to resist to the last man.

Once the two-hour deadline had expired, the two sides began exchanging gunfire.

He was posthumously awarded with the title "Hero of Kosovo" following its declaration of independence in 2008.

The National Theatre in Pristina, Pristina International Airport Adem Jashari and the Adem Jashari Olympic Stadium have been named after him.