Compiled by Sgt. 1st Class Connie E. Dickey
WASHINGTON (Army News Service,
June 11, 1999) - Some 1,500 members of the Army's Task Force Hawk have
been ordered to Skopje, Macedonia to be among the first Americans
to establish a presence in the Kosovo peace implementation force.
Army officials announced
an additional 200 soldiers from U.S. Army Europe's V Corps will join
Task Force Hawk and about 1,900 Marines of the 26th Marine Expeditionary
Unit to become Task Force Falcon, part of the international security
force, called KFOR or Kosovo Force.
Task Force Falcon will
eventually total 7,000 U.S. service members, Department of Defense officials
said, but the remaining military units for the mission have not yet been
identified.
The U.S. element of KFOR
will control one of three zones in Kosovo according to a military
technical agreement signed June 9 between Yugoslav armed forces representatives
and NATO. Kenneth Bacon, DoD spokesman, said the U.S. will be responsible
for the eastern part of Kosovo and will probably set up headquarters in
the town of Gnjilane. He said Britain and France would control the
other two zones.
The peacekeeping mission
of KFOR is to establish a secure environment in Kosovo and allow ethnic
Albanian Kosovars to return to their homes there, but officials said force
protection remains a top priority.
Task Force Hawk is composed
of units from the 82nd
Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, N.C., and the 2nd Brigade,
1st Armored Division, Schweinfurt, Germany.
Army officials said elements
from the task force include two light infantry companies, an anti-tank
company, engineers, military police, intelligence, signal, civil affairs,
medical and explosive ordnance disposal personnel, AH-64 Apache attack
helicopters, UH-60 Black Hawks, OH-58 Kiowa Scouts, CH-47 Chinooks, Abrams
tanks, Bradley Fighting Vehicles, Paladin howitzers and 105mm artillery
pieces.
The Army contingent of Task
Force Hawk started moving from Tirana, Albania to Skopje, Macedonia
June 9, DoD officials said, and should be in Skopje within 72 hours.
The U.S. element will be
part of NATO's Allied Rapid Reaction Corps. An intermediate staging
and support base, similar to the U.S. National Support Element in Taszar,
Hungary, is being established at Camp Able Sentry in Skopje, Macedonia
to supply and support the U.S. soldiers in KFOR.
(Information from this article
came from interviews with Army officials, and articles from Task Force
Hawk, U.S. Army Europe and the Armed Forces Press Service.)
