NATO condemns Macedonia killings

Macedonian forces patrol the flashpoint border with Kosovo

SKOPJE, Macedonia -- Macedonia has announced a crackdown after eight of its security servicemen were killed in a gun attack near the Kosovo border.

The government said it will send military reinforcements to the northwest of its territory where the eight died on Saturday, but would not reveal how many additional soldiers would go, the Associated Press said.

The country's police imposed a curfew from 10 p.m. (2000 GMT) to 5 a.m. (0300 GMT) in Tetovo, Macedonia's second largest city and focus of trouble earlier in the year.

NATO has also announced it is to boost its military presence on the Macedonian and Kosovo border after the attack.

It has ordered more helicopters and foot patrols at the border, "to prevent any illegal crossing and illegal activity," a spokesman for NATO-led peacekeepers, Major Axel Jandesek, said.

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Four policemen and four soldiers had been shot while carrying out a routine patrol near the village of Vejce in the northwest of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

Six members of the elite "Wolves" security unit were also injured in the ambush when militants fired mortars and rocket-propelled grenades, a military spokesman said.

"The situation is tense so we have strengthened police and army observation points," a police official told Reuters.

The Macedonian government held an emergency session and President Boris Trajkovski called a National Security Council meeting for late on Sunday.

Fears that violence could escalate

It was the first serious incident since Macedonian security forces quelled a month-long uprising by ethnic Albanian separatists, driving them from hills in northern Macedonia in late March.

It is also the highest death toll in a single attack since hostilities broke out in February.

Presidential Chief of Cabinet Zoran Jolevski told CNN: "On the political side we have had big progress in the last few weeks. Things have been moving in a very good direction. What happened (just now) is very sad."

The attack sparked fears that violence may escalate.

"I don't think we will have a wide battle front...but there will be individual attacks," former interior minister Pavle Trajanov told AP.

Trajkovski cancelled a trip to Romania in response to the violence, but was still expected to travel to Washington this week. The U.S. trip was agreed on during Secretary of State Colin Powell's visit to Macedonia earlier this month.

European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana condemned the deaths, saying violence had no role in negotiations.

NATO Secretary-General George Robertson said: "I condemn the cowardly acts of the extremists and my message is simple: the violence must end and their tactics will not be successful."

Ali Ahmeti, the political leader of the National Liberation Army ethnic Albanian separatist force, told Reuters he was still collecting information on the incident but maintained his forces had not attacked.

"Most likely, our forces only resisted in self defence," he said.

Ethnic Albanian rebels and Macedonian troops have clashed since Macedonian Albanians began demanding greater civil rights in February.

Macedonia has won strong Western backing for its fight against the rebels, but it is also under international pressure to make concessions to ethnic Albanians.

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Government of Macedonia
NATO
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