Albanian Armed Forces

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Flag of Albania Armed Forces of Albania
Forcat e Armatosura të Shqipërisë
Coat of arms of the Albanian Armed Forces
guide
Commander in Chief : President of the Republic of Ilir Meta
Defense Minister: Olta Xhaçka ( PS )
Military Commander: Brigadier General Bardhyl Kollçaku
Military leadership: Joint Force Command
Headquarters: Tirana
Military strength
Active soldiers: 5,800 (2016)
Conscription: suspended since 2010
Resilient population: Total (men and women; ages 15-49): 1,565,597 (2008; estimate)
Eligibility for military service: 19 years of age
Share of soldiers in the total population: 0.25%
household
Military budget: $ 131 million (2016)
Share of gross domestic product : 1.10% (2016)
history
Founding: 4th December 1912
Highest manpower: 321,000

The Albanian Armed Forces ( Albanian  Forcat e Armatosura të Shqipërisë , FASH for short ) are the armed forces of the Republic of Albania . The Balkan country has been a member of NATO since April 2009 .

History since 1990

Soldiers of the Albanian Armed Forces on a mission in Afghanistan (2013)

Like the rest of the country, the armed forces were in a desperate state when the communist regime collapsed in 1990/91. The organization and management structure still functioned, but the equipment was out of date and the financial means were lacking. The new democratic government greatly reduced the size of the armed forces and replaced the cadres.

After the lottery uprising in 1997, the Albanian armed forces showed signs of disintegration. The civil war-like conditions of this year could not be mastered. The whole of Albania fell into chaos.

T-59 tanks deployed near the Kosovo border, May 1999

For this reason, the government started a 10-year reform program as part of Plan 2000 in 2000 . During this time, the armed forces were brought up to date technologically, reorganized, modernized and received professional training. This also included the destruction of the huge stocks of ammunition from the communist era. In mid-July 2007 it was announced that Albania - with the support of Western countries - was the first country in the world to have demonstrably destroyed its entire stocks of chemical weapons . The destruction of conventional ammunition, some of which was more than 40 years old, caused more problems. On March 15, 2008, an ammunition dump near Gërdec , where workers were busy destroying ammunition, was hit by an explosion . As a result of the hourly explosions, 26 people lost their lives and several hundred were injured. In Gërdec and two other villages, several hundred houses were completely destroyed and one and a half thousand buildings were damaged. As early as May 2006, there had been explosions in an arms depot in southern Albania, which left one dead and several seriously injured.

Albania has had a professional army since 2010 . It consists of a maximum of 14,500 active soldiers and 5,000 reservists. Conscription, which had last been twelve months, was suspended.

International cooperation

Due to the repeatedly very uneasy political situation in the Balkans , the Albanian governments have been looking for Western allies since the fall of communism. As a result of these longstanding efforts, the country was admitted to NATO in April 2009 . Before that, however, there were regular maneuvers with the participation of US soldiers in Albania. The interest of foreign armed forces in Albania increased especially in the run-up to the Kosovo war . Albania, which itself was not involved in combat operations, served as the base for the warring NATO countries. Until 2010, NATO operated a headquarters in Tirana, with a particular focus on logistics.

Even before the war in Kosovo, Albania had to rely on the help of foreign armed forces twice. After the fall of the communist regime, the Italian military first tried to secure supplies for the population in the Pellicano mission from 1991 to 1993 in order to prevent another refugee exodus to Italy . Even during the lottery uprising in 1997, the Albanian military was completely overwhelmed and showed signs of disintegration. As part of Operation Alba , it was again forced to bring 6,000 foreign soldiers into the country under the leadership of Italy in order to restore order.

Assignments abroad

Soldiers of the Albanian and US armed forces on a mission in Iraq (2005)

Albania participated with 100 soldiers in SFOR in Bosnia and Herzegovina and with one observer in UNOMIG in Georgia . From 2003 it supported the US Army and its allies in Iraq with 70 soldiers at first and from 2005 with 120 soldiers until the withdrawal. Albania's small participation in the coalition of the willing never met with great opposition from the population of the Muslim-majority country, as the vast majority of Albanians have an extremely positive attitude towards the USA . In addition, around 63 Albanian soldiers are stationed in Chad ( MINURCAT ). In a hitherto unexplained incident in southern Robat in Afghanistan on February 20, 2012, an Albanian soldier of the international protection force was killed by Afghan police officers. This was the first Albanian to be killed while on an assignment abroad.

structure

The Joint Force Command forms a cross- armed forces headquarters to which the three armed forces, Army, Air Force and Navy are subordinate.

army

Associations:

The Army High Command is in Tirana . In Burrel , Gjirokastra , Korca , Kukes and Shkodra there are regional commands.

Equipment:

air force

Decommissioned Shenyang F-6 fighter aircraft in the aircraft cavern in Gjadër near Lezha
Associations:

The main bases of the Air Force are in Tirana-Lapraka , Vlora, Berat-Kuçova , Tirana-Rinas and Tirana-Farka. The aircraft cavern at the Lezha - Zadrima military airfield , also known as Gjadër , has been driven into the mountains and consists of a single tunnel. The aircraft cavern is now inactive and serves only as storage for the decommissioned Shenyang F-6 and Chengdu F-7 .

Equipment:

marine

Patrol boat Iliria put into service in September 2008
Bases:

The naval command is in Tirana .

Equipment:

The four former submarines of the Romeo class are no longer in the portfolio of the Albanian Navy.

See also

literature

  • The World Defense Almanac 2006, Mönch Publishing Group, Bonn 2006

Web links

Commons : Albanian Armed Forces  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Defense Expenditure of NATO Countries (2010-2017) Press Release Communique PR / CP (2017) 111, NATO Public Diplomacy Division, June 29, 2017 (PDF)
  2. ↑ a b CIA World Factbook: Military (English) Military section from the article on Albania. Date of discovery: July 30, 2008.
  3. ^ History of the Albanian Armed Forces. aaf.mil.al, accessed December 11, 2013 .
  4. ↑ Hans-Joachim Hoppe : Albania's Army in Transition, in: Südosteuropa, Heft 5/1994, pp. 258-304.
  5. ↑ Albania destroys its chemical weapons inventory. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . July 14, 2007, accessed October 17, 2019 .
  6. ↑ A devastating series of explosions in Albania. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . March 17, 2008, accessed December 27, 2012 .
  7. ^ Albania's weak institutions. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . April 30, 2008, accessed December 27, 2012 .
  8. ↑ Heavy explosion in ammunition storage. In: Albanien.ch. March 15, 2008, accessed December 27, 2012 .
  9. ↑ Jonilda Koci: Albania to abolish conscription by 2010. In: SETimes. August 21, 2008, archived from the original on October 17, 2014 ; accessed on January 29, 2014 (English).
  10. ↑ NATO HQ Tirana (NHQT). In: NATO . September 30, 2014, accessed January 17, 2017 .
  11. ↑ Albanian soldier killed in Afghanistan. In: Albanien.ch. February 21, 2012, accessed December 27, 2012 .
  12. ^ World Air Forces 2013. In: Flight Global. December 11, 2012, archived from the original on November 2, 2013 ; accessed on August 8, 2013 .
  13. ↑ Weapon Systems Overview - Albania (Albania) - Air Force. In: GlobalDefence.net. May 6, 2006, accessed January 17, 2017 .
  14. ↑ U zhvillua në Rinas ceremonia e mbërritjes së helikopterit të ri të Forcave Ajrore Cougar versioni "MEDEVAC". In: Albanian Ministry of Defense. April 25, 2013, accessed on January 17, 2017 (Albanian): “Ky helikopter është i dyti që i bashkohet Forcave Ajrore dhe është ndërtuar në zbatim të kontratës No. 6853/10, date December 17, 2009, ndërmjet Ministrisë së Mbrojtjes të Republikës së Shqipërisë dhe kompanisë franceze "Eurocopter", mbi furnizimin e pesë helikopterëve "AS 532 AL Cougar" dhe pajisjet që i shoqërojnë nënshkruar më 17 dhjetor 2009. "