Amidst the backdrop of a magnificent palette of autumnal colours, soldiers of the 1st Battalion, The Royal Yorkshire Regiment (1 R Yorks) set out to patrol the mountainous region that separates Kosovo from Serbia. This is the Strategic Reserve Force (SRF) in action supporting NATO’s Kosovo Force.
KFOR, as it is better known, is a multi-national NATO military force that sits within Kosovo whose mandate is to contribute to a safe and secure environment for all people and communities living in Kosovo enabling freedom of movement. It operates as a third security responder after the Kosovan Police and European Union Rule of Law.
There are two aspects as to our presence here. The first is to reassure the nationals that NATO and the UK remain committed to supporting the region. The second is to deter organised crime groups’ illegal activity along the ABL and these are some of the more discreet operations.
KFOR’s origins date from the violent break-up of the former Yugoslavia back in the 1990s; declarations of self-determination by its constituent republics rekindled centuries old rivalries and bitterness throughout the Balkan region – no stranger when it comes to colonisation by external powers: Romans (1st Century), Persians (5th Century) Ottomans (14th Century), Habsburgs (17th Century), the Nazis (1941) and Russia (1944) to name but a few.
The ensuing civil wars across the Balkans were brought to a halt in 1995 with the signing of the Dayton Agreement. However, in 1998 further hostilities broke out when Kosovo announced its intention to break away from Serbia. It led to months of violence and accusations of ethnic cleansing. Only air strikes by NATO planes against the protagonists eventually put paid to the bloodshed and brought the warring factions to the peace table. KFOR is the legacy of those negotiations which now form part of a regional presence to underpin that safe and secure environment across Kosovo.
The UK maintains a battlegroup formation of some 600 troops that remain at high readiness to deploy out to Kosovo. It forms the Strategic Reserve Force (SRF) that can be called upon to reinforce NATO’s presence in the event of an up tic in tensions or a sustained threat to regional security.
Last year in 2023 just such an event happened; the SRF, then formed by the 1st Battalion, The Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment, was activated following a siege at a Kosovan monastery and the subsequent gun battle left four dead.
Normally we fly covertly, meaning we are operating at quite a height so as not to be heard and virtually invisible to the naked eye. We have the option to drop down in altitude and with the clarity of the on-board camera, we can make out individuals and track specific vehicles.
This year the SRF baton has been passed to 1 R YORKS which during its tenure is required to conduct Operation Rehearsal. As the title implies, it is an exercise to rehearse the battalion’s ability to deploy out to Kosovo at short notice.
Operation Rehearsal will typically see approximately half the full SRF complement mobilise; around 300 troops and 120 vehicles from the UK both by Royal Air Force transport aircraft and strategic maritime lift capability using one of the four Ministry of Defence Roll on-Roll off cargo ships. The operation lasts six weeks during which the exercising troops whilst in theatre assume the tasks and duties they could expect to have to conduct should they get that call from Supreme Allied Command Europe again.
With its headquarters in Camp Bondsteel, by far KFOR’s largest establishment, 1 R Yorks supported by Tamandu Company of 2nd Battalion Royal Gurkha Rifles and the myriad of attached arms; engineers, mechanics, Royal Army Medical Corps, Intelligence Corps etc. was split between Bondsteel and Camp Nothing Hill way to the north in the picturesque mountainous area that separates the country from Serbia.
It is here in these remote areas that the SRF are put to work fulfilling their primary role, ensuring a safe and secure environment to allow freedom of movement for all. High on the agenda is the monitoring of known smuggling routes used by illegal logging gangs and other serious crime groups (SCGs) moving illicit goods, drugs, and weaponry between the two countries; activities that contribute to a destabilisation in law-and-order risking regional security.
A section from the regiment’s Burma Company were an hour into conducting a lung-bursting eight hour foot patrol carried out at altitude when they arrived to inspect two isolated cabins known to be the haunt of local smugglers. Within five minutes a battered car pulled up, seemingly from nowhere, and out jumped a man to keep an eye on proceedings. The soldiers do not possess the authority to enter properties and conduct searches; however, their orders are to make a notes and report back to their operations room and the Kosovan Police – and so this man’s description along with the car and its registration number were duly scribbled down and sent back.
You may have noted the lack of use of the word border when describing this region between Kosovo and Serbia and for good reason. As it remains disputed between the two countries and not recognised by several others. To ensure KFOR it is not seen to endorse any claims and so maintain its strict position of impartiality, it does not refer to it being an international border and describing it as the Administrative Boundary Line (ABL). GPS and paper maps will often show a dotted line or in some cases separate boundary lines, but it is the ABL which definitively marks the extent at which the 1 R Yorks patrols can operate to. Consequently, the ABL is distinctly marked with very clear notices at 200 metre intervals as you approach.
We all have to be actively diligent, everyone on the patrol is then looking around as there is a real threat such as the OCGs and smugglers. We are learning navigation skills along the way, how to recognise potential heli-landing sites and casualty evacuation points – this a live op and we all have to be switched on.
The 1 R Yorks Battlegroup Commander, Lieutenant Colonel Ed Lyons explained. “There are two aspects as to our presence here. The first is to reassure the nationals that NATO and the UK remain committed to supporting the region. The second is to deter organised crime groups’ illegal activity along the ABL and these are some of the more discreet operations.”
Reassurance and deterrence is all about a visible presence and the statistics will tell you that where the smuggling and crime rates are far lower when the patrols are seen to be out and about. Of course, the opposite can be said for the observation, monitoring and intelligence gathering of Organised Crime Groups. It is here that the troops bring to bear and refine their infantry skills, covertly laying low for 24, 48hrs or sometimes even longer to get eyes on and build a detailed picture of illegal activity, usually carried out under the cover of darkness.
Perhaps one of the greatest assets the Commander can call on is a very special set of eyes that can look down across vast areas. I am, of course, referring to the drone capability he can call on. Attached to the battlegroup is the specialist section from 32 Regiment, Royal Artillery who can usually be found atop the highest points operating their remote piloted automated systems (RPASs a winged drone as opposed to the more familiar small quadcopter types). Sergeant Jacob Fobbester, one of the RPAS pilots said, “Normally we fly covertly, meaning we are operating at quite a height so as not to be heard and virtually invisible to the naked eye. We have the option to drop down in altitude and with the clarity of the on-board camera, we can make out individuals and track specific vehicles.”
The overwhelming feeling among the troops out on the ground is that Operation Rehearsal represents ‘proper soldiering’ as Corporal Brandon Carroll of Quebec company put it, “We all have to be actively diligent, everyone on the patrol is then looking around as there is a real threat such as the Organised Crime Groups and smugglers. We are learning navigation skills along the way, how to recognise potential heli-landing sites and casualty evacuation points – this a live op and we all have to be switched on.”
