Shootout near Kosovo keeps Macedonian politicians on the edge

Macedonian politicians, rather jumpy after the violent clashes that brought the tiny Balkan country on the edge of full scale civil war in 2001, immediately scheduled an urgent parliamentary session, but only to illustrate deep disagreements between ruling coalition and main Macedonian opposition party, Social-Democrats (SDSM).

Despite the fact that the clash seemed to be a result of traditional blood feud, Balkan analysts warned of possible renewed tensions in all Albanian-dominated enclaves around Kosovo.

The assailants killed a local police commander, an ethnic Albanian, and wounded two other officers, in a clash widely seen as a retaliatory attack launched by a group of gunmen believed to be loosely associated with a shadowy Albanian National Army (AKSh).

Gunmen struck the police jeep near the gas station in apparent revenge attack over the recent arrest of a controversial local former rebel leader Xhemail Hyseni, better known by his nom-de-guerre "Commander Jamie Shea", who was recaptured by Macedonian security forces after spectacular escape from prison, where he served a seven-year sentence for twin-bomb attacks on major railway and main square in town of Kumanovo in 2003.

According to police reports, attackers were led by Hyseni's grandson Zaim Halili, a.k.a. "Commander Tushi", who was seriously wounded in gun battle, but managed to escape to nearby Kosovo, only to be captured by provincial police force. Police killed two other members of this group, who were identified as "Jamie Shea's" brother, Xheladin and his other grandson Skender Halili.

The Vaksince shootout followed a quarrel between the other former guerilla leader Xhezair Shaqiri, a.k.a. "Commander Hoxha" and central government over the status of three Albanian villages allegedly preparing a referendum on seceding from Macedonia. The villages of Tanusevci, Malino and Brest served as Albanian National Liberation Army (UCK) strongholds during the 2001 insurgency, which brought Macedonia on the edge of full scale civil war.

Speaking before the lawmakers, Interior Minister Gordana Jankolovska said that the Vaksince incident cannot be put in the political context, but the leader of SDSM Radmila Sekerinska warned of renewed security risks in Macedonia.

"Do you think that this happened by accident, and that there is no security risk for the Republic of Macedonia, when in Kosovo they seized 90 kilograms of explosives and a serious amount of weapons?" Sekerinska said.

"The Kosovar authorities and international officials said these weapons may have arrived in Kosovo from Macedonia."

Even though the ethnic tensions in Macedonia were largely resolved within the frameworks of internationally mediated Ohrid peace agreement, local political analysts believe that the struggling process aimed at solving Kosovo's status could harm the overall stability in this tiny Balkan country.

Analysts say the greatest danger to Macedonia's European future lies in hands of AKSh, a strange mixture of plain gangsters, smugglers and fishy ‘freedom fighters', who have used the fragile situation in the country to push their own agenda.

AKSh, which campaigns the unification of all Albanian-dominated regions in southern Balkans in to a single state, has been blacklisted by U.S. President George Bush in 2001. Two years later the UN declared AKSh a terrorist organization after the failed bomb-attack in northern, Serbian-dominated Kosovo.