Operation Horseshoe was a large-scale campaign which escalated to ethnic cleansing of Kosovo Albanians carried out by Serbian Police and Yugoslav Army during the Kosovo War. In 2011, former Bulgarian Foreign Minister Nadezhda Neynski revealed that the Bulgarian government and its military agency compiled a report which made clear the existence of the plan and turned over the information to Germany, although the plan was not verified.
The Yugoslav Army and the Serbian Police in early 1999 "in an organized manner, with significant use of state resources" conducted a broad campaign of violence against Albanian civilians to expel them from Kosovo and thus maintain political control of Belgrade over the province. Serbian campaign of ethnic cleansing was cited in support of the NATO intervention. After the war, International War Crimes Tribunal sentenced some of the top Yugoslav political and military leaders for forcible population transfer, deportation and persecution of Kosovo civilians.
Years before Bulgarian Foreign Minister Nadezhda Neynski revelation, some authors disputed the existence of such a plan or some of its aspects. According to book by Heinz Loquai, a retired German brigadier general, published in April 2000, the Bulgarian analysis concluded that the goal of the Serbian military was to destroy the Kosovo Liberation Army, and not to expel the entire Albanian population.
Read more about Operation Horseshoe: Horseshoe Plan, Number of Refugees, War Crime Trials, Controversy
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