Hundreds of Kosovar Albanians have celebrated the Night of Fires, the anniversary of the launch of the armed resistance to the regime of the late Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic 20 years ago.
People holding lighted torches assembled on March 7 in the evening in the town of Prekaz, 50 kilometers west of the capital, Pristina, where Adem Jashari, a Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) commander, and more than 50 family members were killed by Serb Army and paramilitary forces in 1998.
Kosovo's 1998-99 armed resistance ended after a 78-day air strike campaign from NATO against Serbia to stop a bloody crackdown against ethnic Albanians.
Milosevic's brutal crackdown on Kosovo's ethnic Albanians killed around 10,000 people.
In 2008, Kosovo declared independence from Serbia, which has been recognized by 117 countries, including the United States, but not by Serbia or Russia.
