Policeman shot dead in Macedonia, near Kosovo

By Staff
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Google Oneindia News

SKOPJE, Sep 10 (Reuters) A Macedonian police commander was killed and two officers wounded in a shootout in an ethnic Albanian area on the country's northern border near Kosovo, police said today.

An ethnic Albanian gunman died in the exchange and a second was arrested in Kosovo and was being treated in hospital for wounds, police sources in Macedonia and Kosovo said.

The shootout occurred shortly after midnight near the village of Vaksince, just south of the border with Serbia and its breakaway Albanian-majority province, Kosovo.

''The commander of the Matejce police station died on the way to hospital,'' a Macedonian police spokesman said. He identified the dead officer as the local, ethnic Albanian, police commander.

The police patrol had come under attack and had returned fire, the spokesman said.

A Kosovo police source said the wounded gunman was Zaim Halili, nephew of a former guerrilla who escaped from prison in Macedonia last month and was re-arrested two weeks ago. Halili had threatened revenge.

In 2001, fighting between ethnic Albanian guerrillas and Macedonian security forces in the region around Vaksince marked the start of a seven-month insurgency that spread across north and western Macedonia before the West brokered a peace accord.

Tensions are rising among Albanians in the region over a stalled Western drive to grant Kosovo independence eight years after NATO bombed to end the ethnic cleansing of Albanians by Serb forces and the United Nations took control.

Western diplomats and analysts have warned frustrations could spill over into violence, in Kosovo, Macedonia or the ethnic Albanian region of southern Serbia, which also saw fighting in 2000 and 2001.

They also note that bands of armed criminals have at times taken advantage of these tensions to carve out lawless, no-go areas near the border zone.

European Union and NATO diplomacy ended the 2001 insurgency in Macedonia with a peace accord offering the country's 25-per cent Albanian minority greater rights.

The guerrillas laid down their weapons and entered government in 2002, but the main ex-guerrilla bloc found itself in opposition following elections in 2006. Macedonia became an official candidate to join the EU in late 2005, but has warned tensions over Kosovo could destabilise the region.

With the backing of the United States, Kosovo has threatened to declare independence from Serbia if talks mediated by the West and Russia fail to yield agreement by December.

Russia supports Serbia in its opposition to independence.

REUTERS GL PM1607

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