Serbian forces, ignoring peace agreements and international condemnation, terrorized ethnic Albanians, crushing villages, burning businesses and killing families.
When a peace accord negotiated in Rambouillet, France, failed to force the Milosevic government to end its brutal campaign, NATO planes launched a high-tech air war. Over 11 weeks, the NATO forces flew more than 31,000 sorties and dropped 20,000 bombs and missiles, destroying much of Serbia's infrastructure.
The damage was not just to Milosevic's forces. In the course of the campaign, NATO hit residential neighborhoods in Belgrade and other cities, killing scores of men, women and children, along with dozens of Albanian refugees in Kosovo.
On May 7, NATO bombs mistakenly hit the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, killing three people and setting off a diplomatic furor between China and Washington. The Chinese found it hard to believe the U.S. explanation that the intelligence staff that identified the embassy as a target had used an outdated map.
Late in May, Milosevic was indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal, which blamed him for the deportation, murder and persecution of hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanians.
On June 3, Yugoslavia accepted an international peace plan for ending the conflict, bowing to NATO demands for the withdrawal of all army and police forces, and the deployment of a NATO-dominated peacekeeping force.
The peace has been uneasy at best. When ethnic Albanians returned to their homes, they sought revenge against Serbs, who were forced to flee the province.
International officials say some former guerrillas of the Kosovo Liberation Army, who led the forces against Milosevic, appear to be behind the campaign to rid Kosovo of its remaining 70,000 Serbs.
Even in peace, the province is a lethal landscape. More than 300 people have been killed or injured by leftover NATO cluster bombs and Serb land mines.
