Twenty years ago, Zoltan Dani achieved a miraculous military feat: wielding outdated missile equipment, his army unit shot down an American F117 "stealth fighter" flying over Serbia as part of NATO's 1999 air strike assault.

The David-vs-Goliath victory was one of the most surprising achievements of the Serbian side as it was battered by NATO bombs that began dropping 20 years ago on Sunday, in a bid to halt Belgrade's war with Kosovo.

But in perhaps an even more remarkable twist, the retired army officer is now close friends with the American pilot whose Nighthawk he brought down.

"Bingo," Dani, now 62, recalls saying when he first learned he had struck the American aircraft, which was touted as invisible to radar.

The downing of the F117 three days into the NATO assault earned Dani national hero status.

It was the first and only time a F117 has been shot down in combat, leading celebratory Serbs to print shirts and posters with the slogan: "We didn't know it was invisible!"

After three months of air strikes, Serbia was forced to withdraw its troops from Kosovo, where its forces had been battling ethnic Albanian separatists.

While the NATO intervention is celebrated as the basis of Kosovans' liberation today, traumatic memories of the bombs remain deeply etched in Serbia's public memory.

But Dani and his US counterpart, Air Force pilot Dale Zelko, managed to put their past behind them.

Around a decade ago, they started exchanging emails.

"It was important, among other things, to learn what kind of man he was," Dani, who is part of Serbia's Hungarian minority, told AFP from his home in eastern Skorenovac.

"After two to three years we decided together that it was time to meet."

- 'Message of peace' -

That 2012 encounter, filmed in a documentary called 'The Second Meeting', saw Zelko travel to Dani's home where he had opened a bakery after retiring from military service.

"When he arrived... I handed him an apron, he took it and we worked together," recalls Dani with a grin.

In the documentary, the two men are seen rolling out pastry dough together before visiting a Serbian museum where tattered pieces of the F117 are on display.

"Hey, that's my stuff," Zelko jokes, pointing at the display.

They also visit the field where the American pilot landed after he ejected from his aircraft in a parachute.

"As soon as I saw those missiles I thought, oh man, they got me," Zelko says standing in the field.

At a screening of the film in Belgrade in 2012, Zelko addressed the room.

"I am sorry for your suffering and sorrow, loss and anguish," he said, visibly shaken.

"War is not between normal, average people, it is between the governments," he added.

Dani says he was initially hesitant about making contact with his former war foe, but ultimately decided it would "be an opportunity to send a common message of peace and understanding".

The following year he visited Zelko and his family at their home in New Hampshire.

Now they still talk "once or twice a week by email", reports Dani.

Near his computer is a large chunk of dark metal -- another recovered piece of the F117 -- leaning against the wall.

Serbia marks 20 years since NATO bombing campaign
Belgrade (AFP) March 24, 2019 - Serbia on Sunday marked 20 years since the NATO air strikes that forced Belgrade to withdraw its troops from Kosovo, ending a conflict that claimed more than 13,000 lives.

After the operation to get president Slobodan Milosevic to stop his deadly crackdown on Kosovo separatists, the former Serbian province, mainly ethnic Albanian, was put under UN administration.

Kosovo unilaterally declared independence in 2008 -- which Serbia refuses to recognise.

Commemorations were held across the country to recall the start of "NATO aggression", with a main ceremony in the southern town of Nis, which Serbian president Aleksandar Vucic said drew 20,000 people.

The sound of an air raid siren kicked off the ceremony at 7:45 pm, the minute when the strikes began on March 24, 1999, and the airing of scenes of the bombings on a big screen.

- 'The most tragic days' -

"These are the most tragic days of our history," Orthodox Serbian Patriarch Irinej told the crowd, many holding candles.

"What is even more tragic is that it involved our former allies, our former friends."

Milosevic ordered his troops out of Kosovo on June 10, 1999.

NATO forces struck dozens of military targets, as well as infrastructure such as bridges, railways and the electrical grid. The number of civilian victims has not been officially established, and ranges from 500 according to Human Rights Watch to 2,500, according to Serbian officials.

"We were alone in the face of the biggest military power in the world," said Vucic, a former ultra-nationalist who became a centrist and wants his country to join the European Union.

"Their goal was clear: to beat us and humiliate us, and then give part of our territory to someone else," he said.

- 'It will always be a crime' -

Citing 2,500 civilians dead including 79 children and a "devastated country", he said the bombing campaign would "always be a crime".

Earlier on Sunday, the ambassadors of eight Western countries -- Canadian, French, Italian, German, Dutch, Norwegian, British and American -- paid their respects to civilian victims at a monument in Belgrade.

"We remember March 24 as the day diplomacy failed, and we express our sincere regret for the loss of civilian lives during the events of 1999," they said in a joint statement. "We are saddened for all of those who lost their loved ones during the wars of the 1990s. We are here to honour their memory and are determined to work even harder to contribute to lasting peace and stability to the region."

Kosovo Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj, for his part, said Saturday that "NATO's intervention in Milosevic's genocidal action against people of Kosovo was crucial humanitarian contribution (that) demonstrated coordinated international action for peace, justice and rules-based world order.

Writing on Twitter, he added: "The people of Kosovo will always reaffirm the profound gratitude for saving thousands of lives & giving us the opportunity to live in peace and freedom".

In Nis, Vucic was hailed for his statement that "the Serbian people have made the dignified decision that they to not want Serbia to join NATO," adding that remaining militarily neutral is "a natural choice".

According to a recent opinion poll conducted by the Institute of European Affairs, 79 percent of Serbs oppose joining NATO, with only 10 percent in favour.

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