After a period of brinkmanship, US envoy Richard Holbrooke managed to broker a deal on 15 October 1998 that called for a ceasefire and separation of forces to be monitored by NATO airpower and a 2,000-strong force of unarmed international observers to be provided by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).

A week later NATO launched Operation Eagle Eye to monitor compliance with the Holbrooke agreement by technical means. The terrible Balkan weather, mountainous terrain and intermingling of combatants and refugees make the operation very demanding for NATO surveillance forces.

Command of the operation has been delegated to NATO's southern regional headquarters in Naples. Day-to-day control and tasking of air assets is exercised from the combined air operation centre (CAOC) at Dal Molin Airbase in Vicenza, Italy. The link between NATO and the OSCE is the newly formed Kosovo Verification Co-ordination Centre (KVCC) at Kumanovo, in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, that was formally established on 26 November. It is the task of the KVCC to conduct liaison, planning, co-ordination and exchange of information with the OSCE verifiers.

NATO members have provided a variety of surveillance platforms to give the CAOC and KVCC the intelligence data they need to understand what is happening on the ground in Kosovo, in real-time. The latter requirement is particularly important, as NATO is also tasked, under operation joint guarantor, with extracting the OSCE monitors if they are threatened. A 1,500-strong European extraction force is poised in Macedonia to mount rescue operations in Kosovo at one hour's notice.

Sensor sensibilities