Rebels clash with Macedonian troops

Macedonia faced its most serious security crisis for more than a year yesterday, when ethnic Albanians clashed with security forces on the border with Kosovo in fighting that left several gunmen dead.

Macedonian police said a routine border patrol came under fire yesterday morning from suspected Albanian militants. The troops called for support and police then launched an operation to take control of two villages, Brest and Malina Mala.

A number of armed Albanian militants were killed, police said. There were no casualties among security forces, though clashes were continuing last night.

The incident is one of the most serious to have taken place since the 2001 conflict between the rebel ethnic Albanian movement the National Liberation Army and the security forces, dominated by ethnic Macedonians.

The fighting ended with the disarmament of the NLA, and promises of increased rights for the country's ethnic Albanian minority.

Several former NLA commanders, including the leader Ali Ahmeti, were elected to form a new coalition government just under a year ago.

Yesterday's clashes follow two weeks of increased tension in the north-west of the country.

Earlier last week hundreds of policeman surrounded two villages near the town of Kumanovo to try to arrest a former guerrilla commander accused of kidnapping a policeman and a civilian.

The police action prompted dozens of men, many dressed in black, to emerge equipped with semi-automatic rifles promising to defend their homes.

Tensions were calmed with the withdrawal of police forces before the weekend.

Before yesterday's shooting, the interior minister had played down the threat posed by the re-emergence of armed ethnic Albanian groups, saying he did not want to launch a major security operation against them.

"We are not going to drop an atomic bomb just to kill a few ants," Hari Kostov said.

But yesterday's clashes are likely to pose a threat to the government's policy of containment.

Local Albanian leaders in the area say there is little support for another armed rebellion but warn that the police - who are still largely Macedonian in ethnicity - have no right to launch security operations in their villages.

This, diplomats say, has left a security vacuum in ethnic Albanian areas in which gangs mainly linked to crime and smuggling have been able to operate more or less unhindered.