The Italian contribution in the NATO Operation in Macedonia (FYROM) began on 9thDecember 1998. The multinational Force, in the Operation NATO "Joint Guarantor", had to evacuate the OSCE auditors from Kosovo if security conditions imposed it.
The Italian Army contributed in the constitution of that Force (Extraction Force) with a Tactical Group, composed by militaries of the 8thBersaglieri Regiment of the "Garibaldi" Brigade; its initial task was to evacuate the OSCE auditors of the KVM Mission (Kosovo Verification Mission) deployed in Kosovo before the NATO intervention.
After the technical-military agreement between the NATO representatives and the Serbian delegation, the North Atlantic Council authorized the re-deployment of a NATO Force (KFOR) in Kosovo in order to verify and, if necessary, imposed the terms of the agreement. The deployment of the Force in Kosovo took place from the Macedonian bases.