Popova Sapka

Popova Šapka (sometimes mentioned as Popova Sapka or Popova Shapka) is one of the most famous winter-recreational and ski resorts in Macedonia and the former Yugoslavia. It is located in Šar Planina (mountain). The resort is situated on 18 km from Tetovo and from the capital, Skopje is just 48 km away.Šar Planina itself, is characterized by the numerous natural beauties, large areas covered with grass, flower meadows and 43 peaks at the height over 2,500 meters, above the sea level. The most famous is Titov Vrv - with a height of 2,747 meters, is in the vicinity of Popova Šapka. The beauty of the mountain is enhanced by the several springs and mountain lakes: Livadičko Lake, Crno Lake, Belo Lake, and others. Šar Planina is also rich with woods, that end at 1,600 meters above the sea level. In some of the higher parts of the mountain, the snow remains even during the warmest summer months. The length of this impressive mountain massif extends 80 km, and in latitude - 12 km. The snow cover is from November to April. Popova Šapka is located at the height of 1,708 meters.

Popova Šapka is connected to the nearest city, Tetovo, by a cable railway and a asphalt road. In the immediate vicinity of the Dervish Monastery Arabati Baba Tekje, in Tetovo, is the start of a cable car lift going up to Popova Šapka. The lift is 7 km long and it takes less than 40 minutes to reach Popova Šapka. A good asphalt road, that is passing by the mountainous villages of Gajre, Šipkovica and Lisec, leads to the complex of hotels and ski slopes, which can be used during the whole year, even in the winter months, (except in very bad snow storms), because the road is always being cleaned from the snow cover. The ski slopes in Popova Šapka are first class. They are connected by chair and drag-lifts.

There are 6 ski-lifts: Teteks 1, Teteks 2, Aerodrom, Ge (Pionir), Jelak and one parallel to the Aerodrom ski-lift. Also there are 3 chairlifts: Ceripašina and one parallel with Teteks and Aerodrom ski-lifts. The third one is by the Ceripašina double chairlift, but it is out of order. The Teteks ski-lifts are single drag, while all the rest are double drag. The lowest ski-slope is at Teteks ski-lift 1,708 meters, while the highest is Ceripašina chairlift at 2,510 meters. Just above Ceripašina chairlift is situated the Popova Šapka meteorological station, near the border with Serbia (Kosovo), on an altitude of 2,525 meters above the sea level. Several years ago a monastery complex was built by the church dedicated to St. Naum. There is a hut at the Ge (Pionir) ski-lift where the visitors can buy some tea or other products.

International Meetings of Literary Translators in Lesok

The 37th International Meetings of Literary Translators kicked off today in the Tetovo's nearby village of Lesok.

The event brought together about 50 participants from China, Russia, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Spain, Poland, Serbia, Albania, Bulgaria and Macedonia, Makfax's correspondent reported.

The two-day symposium began today with the debate on the subject "The approach of the literary translator toward the idioms in the source text".

Translations to several languages of the verses of Koco Racin's poems were read out in the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the birth of the great Macedonian poet.

The attendants of the International Meetings of Literary Translators laid flowers at the grave of Kiril Pejcinovic, the leader of the Macedonian national revival.

The long-standing financial problems of the Macedonian Translators Association resulted in reduced number of events at today's edition of the Meetings.

The International Meetings of Literary Translators is one of the most reputable manifestations in the country, held immediately after the Struga Poetry Nights, the laureates of which traditionally take part at the symposium.

Turkish bank opens office in Tetovo, Macedonia

The Turkish bank Siraat officially opened today a branch office in the Macedonian town of Tetovo, MIA reports.
Currently there are 10 people working in the office and their number is expected to grow. The opening was attended by the Turkish Deputy PM Nazim Ekrem, the Turkish ambassador to Macedonia Hassan Okcal and representatives of the Macedonian government.

Bey House in Macedonia’s Tetovo to be Restored

Skopje’s National Conservation Centre began the restoration of the nineteenth-century Bey House in Tetovo, north-western Macedonia, which is to eventually become an ethnographic museum, national media reported recently.

The project, worth around 100,000 euro, will be carried out in several stages, the senior conservationist Tsvetanka Hadzhi-Petsova told the Macedonian daily newspaper Vest.

Earlier media reports noted that restoration plans plan to return the house back to its original form, including the reinstallation of its authentic Turkish bricks and the removal of all the walls and structures that were subsequently added onto it.

Mehmed Paloshi’s Bey House, built during the first half of the nineteenth century, dates from the final period of Ottoman rule of the region, which began around the fourteenth to the fifteenth centuries.

According to Vest, the building, which has been protected as a cultural monument since 1950, has an area of 400 square metres. The ground level’s massive stone walls hold up a another floor, whose architectural and stylistic characteristics make it one of the most representative examples of the Ottoman secular architecture of the time not only in Tetovo, but in all of Macedonia.

After the restoration and conservation activities on the house are completed, which according to Hadzhi-Petsova is expected to happen in the next several years, the house will be turned into an ethnographic museum.

Father, son die in car crash in Tetovo area

A father and his child were killed in car crash on Tetovo-Jazince road early on Monday, Makfax correspondent said.

Bozin Krsteski, 43, and his five-year-old son Filip where killed when two cars - Renault Clio and BMW - collided on the road. Bozin's wife sustained severe injuries.

The two men aboard BMW also sustained severe injuries.

Kostovski family was en-route from Tetovo to their home village of Staro Selo.

The two cars, running in opposite direction, collided off a bend near the village of Beloviste.

Silence and grief enveloped the village of Staro Selo on Monday. One year ago, four youths had been killed in car crash, two of them were born in this village.

DPA calls for DUI leader to resign

The Democratic Party of Albanians /DPA/ called for Ali Ahmeti, leader of the Democratic Union for Integration /DUI/, to resign, Focus News Agency’s correspondent in Skopje reported.
At a press conference in Tetovo DPA demanded that Ahmeti give up the post because of the violence and division among Albanians, which escalated on June 1st.
“At Ahmeti’s order a young man was killed in Aracinovo and several others were injured. Is it worth risking someone’s life so that somebody else could become an MP through ballot box stuffing,” said DPA chief secretary Imer Aliu.
DPA thinks that Ahmeti’s withdrawal will normalize the relations between Albanians in Macedonia.

PDP announces merger with DPA

The Party of Democratic Prosperity (PDP) announced today in Tetovo merger with the Democratic Party of Albanians (DPA), Makfax's correspondent reported.

The news was made public by the parties' leaders Adbuljadi Vejseli and Menduh Thaci, pointing out that "the oldest political subject in the country is consigned to history."

The initiative came after the two parties concluded that they would garner more seats in the new parliament if they joined forces.

"Today, we set out a new initiative for unification of the two political parties - PDP and DPA. It will happen very soon, perhaps within days, therefore, DPA and its leader Menduh Thaci are welcome to use our votes," Vejseli said.

"We have a joint initiative for merging of these two parties. I believe the parties' bodies would make positive decisions. Everything is clear," Menduh Thaci added at a joint press conference.

PDP was formed in 1990 as the first party of the Albanians in Macedonia. In February 1994, Arben Xhaferi's faction broke off to give birth to the Party of Democratic Prosperity of Albanians. The new political subject was registered in 1995, to change its name into Democratic Party of Albanians in 1997.

Tetovo police deny involvement in pre-election violence

The Tetovo police chief Faik Dervishi denied any involvement by police in elections-related incidents.

The statement came after the opposition DUI claimed that Dervishi was involved in maltreating of local residents in Dobri Dol. Dervishi labeled the allegations a pure speculation and groundless discrediting campaign.

"The accusations raised by DUI's candidate for parliament Talat Xhaferi, which discredit the Tetovo Police Department and its chief, are nothing but anxious personal pre-election frustrations that missed the target. It is a political manipulation of the public in a bid to court the voters in the run-up to elections," says the media statement posted by Dervishi.

Shootings, Reports of Stolen and Stuffed Ballot Boxes Plague Macedonia Elections

Shootouts with police that led to at least one death and allegations of ballot fraud forced the suspension of voting in at least 20 polling stations Sunday, marring Macedonia's parliamentary election.

The ballot is seen as crucial to the Balkan country's hopes of joining NATO and the European Union, but the violence among rival ethnic Albanian parties and allegations of fraud threatened to derail the election.

Erwan Fouere, head of the European Union office in Macedonia, said he was "deeply concerned."

"We are entering now the critical hour ... before the polls close, and we have appealed to the government and the state authorities to do everything possible to prevent further violence," he told The Associated Press.

One person was killed and eight wounded in shootouts Sunday between rival ethnic Albanian groups or in standoffs with police, Interior Ministry spokesman Ivo Kotevski said. Thirteen people were arrested.

Voting was suspended in at least 20 polling stations — 1 percent of all polling stations in the country — due to irregularities or intimidation, elections commission spokesman Zoran Tanevski said.

The violence was concentrated in ethnic Albanian areas in Macedonia's northwest. Ethnic Albanians make up a quarter of Macedonia's 2.1 million people. Rebels fought a six-month insurgency in 2001 for more rights for ethnic Albanians but since then, a bitter rivalry has intensified among the minority group's political leaders.

Electoral commission chief Jovan Josifovski said voting was calm in most of Macedonia but "the incidents in the northwest region overshadowed expectations that we would have the best-organized elections ever and we could prove to Europe that Macedonia has the capacity to conduct a free and fair election."

Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski's center-right VMRO-DPMNE is seen as almost certain to win the early parliamentary election. A recent opinion poll gave his party 31.3 percent compared with the opposition Social Democrats' 11.2 percent. The 37-year-old needs a majority in the 120-seat parliament to avoid having to form a coalition government.

The most serious incidents Sunday were two shootouts with police near the former ethnic Albanian rebel stronghold of Aracinovo and two near the headquarters of the main ethnic Albanian party, the Democratic Union for Integration.

Kotevski said DUI supporters triggered some of the shootouts by firing on police. But Ali Ahmeti, the ex-rebel leader who is how head of the DUI party, said DUI supporters were retaliating against police-backed "criminal structures" targeting his party.

"What is happening ... is more than slaughtering," Ahmeti said as he voted in Zajas, 70 miles (115 kilometers) southwest of Skopje. "We tried to escape provocation, but unfortunately these criminal structures are backed by the police. The situation is quite dramatic."

The head of the rival Democratic Party of Albanians, Menduh Thaci, said it was "clear: DUI activists shot at police."

In Aracinovo, near Skopje, Kotevski said police were called in to help election officials prevent a man from voting on behalf of multiple people. DUI supporters fired on the officers when they arrived, Kotevski said. Two people were injured, and one later died at the hospital.

Another shootout occurred near the DUI headquarters in Skopje's Cair district. DUI spokeswoman Ermira Mehmeti told The Associated Press that "all of a sudden, huge shooting started." Ahmeti — who claims he was the target of an attempted assassination in Tetovo on May 12 — was not in the building at the time.

In a separate incident, gunmen fired at a police vehicle near the DUI headquarters, injuring five people, Kotevski said. And at a nearby polling station, a shootout between supporters of DUI and the rival Democratic Party of Albanians left another two people wounded, he said.

President Branko Crvenkovski appealed for calm.

"I want to express my hope that all this will end, that we will manage to calm the atmosphere and that we will end the day in a way that is suitable for a country with democratic potential," he said.

Voting also was suspended in Gurgurnica in the northwest after men showed up armed with machine guns. Polling stations in Malino, northwest of Skopje, never opened because ballot boxes were stolen overnight, the election commission said.

Voting also was halted in Ciflig because of ballot stuffing, and in Vrapciste, south of Tetovo, officials said.

In Tetovo, "no weapons" posters were prominently displayed at the entrance to a polling station. The EU and United States jointly had urged the government "to enforce a 'zero tolerance policy' for acts of violence or intimidation."

One Dead in Macedonia Pre-Election Violence

A person was killed in one of several incidents in Macedonia over the weekend, amid ongoing rivalries between the country’s two main ethnic Albanian parties.

Baskim Rustemi, 42, from the village of Gajre, near the western town of Tetovo, died from stab wounds on Saturday night, after being involved in a quarrel with another man, police said. The identity of the killer is apparently known to police.

The Democratic Party of Albanians, DPA said Rustemi was a long standing member of the party.

Earlier on Friday, five activists from the Democratic Union for Integration, DUI , were beaten in the village of Kondovo near Skopje after trying to display party flags ahead of the election campaign which officially kicked off on Sunday.

The activists, who needed hospital treatment, claim they were beaten by members from the ruling DPA.

In a separate incident, a night club owned by a former DPA member, Fadil Arslani was torched in Tetovo. A club security guard was previously kidnapped and released shortly afterwards with his head covered and hands tied.

Arslani claimed his club was torched due to his recent association with the DUI.

Meanwhile the DUI party headquarters in the villages of Golema Recica and Kamenjane around Tetovo and Gostivar were shot at on Saturday night.

DUI accused the DPA for the incidents but the ruling party denied any connection.

The police have said the incidents are being probed. So far there have been no arrests.

Prior to the start of the campaign, all major parties signed a code pledging free and democratic elections.

European Union and NATO officials have said that the snap polls set for June 1 must be fair, so Macedonia can continue to deepen its Euro-Atlantic integration

During parliamentary elections in 2006, there were several incidents between the rival Albanian parties but international monitors assessed the procedure on a whole as fair and democratic.

Thaci: Macedonians To Solve Greece Row

The dispute with Greece is a matter for Macedonians, and Albanians in the country will let them deal with it, a key ethnic Albanian leader in Skopje says.

“We will tolerate the efforts for finding compromise with Greece for as long as we can,” the head of the Democratic Party of Albanians, DPA, Menduh Thaci, told local A1 TV.

Macedonia failed to secure an invitation to join NATO at the alliance’s summit in Bucharest on Thursday following a Greek veto.

Athens was protesting against Skopje’s refusal to change its country’s name.

Greece opposes to Skopje’s constitutional name “Republic of Macedonia” saying it might lead Skopje to make territorial claims on its own northern province, which is also called Maceonia.

Commenting on the recent initiative of his coalition partner, the centre-right VMRO- DPMNE, to call a referendum on the country changing its name, Thaci said that would be the “worst scenario” since it would cause ethnic divisions between the Macedonian majority that would vote against the move, and ethnic Albanians that would largely vote in favour.

Albanians comprise about 25% of the country’s population.

The recent opinion poll conducted by Brima Galup prior to the Bucharest Summit showed that the vast majority of Macedonians put the country’s name ahead of their NATO ambitions while ethnic Albanians think exactly opposite.

The long running row between the two countries began in the early 1990s. Despite increased United Nations and United States diplomatic initiatives to solve the dispute before the NATO summit, it became the sole obstacle to Macedonia’s bid to join the alliance.

After Kosovo: Next Stop Greater Albania?

TETOVO, Macedonia -- Walk down any street in this Macedonian town and you would be forgiven for thinking that an international border has accidentally been crossed.

Stores have Albanian names, cafes have a distinctly Albanian flavor, and the red Albanian flag bearing a black double-headed eagle flutters on the streets.

Albanians form an overwhelming majority in an arc of northwestern Macedonia bordering predominantly Albanian Kosovo, which proclaimed its independence from Serbia this week. The same is true of slices of southern Serbia and Montenegro.

After Kosovo's leap toward self-determination, is the next step a Greater Albania to pool together the region's ethnic Albanians in a unified state?

Don't count on it.

The notion has been frequently floated in recent years, and there are some nationalist ethnic Albanians who advocate unification.

But there appears to be little overall public enthusiasm for it _ not in Albania itself, not in newly independent Kosovo, and not in Albanian-dominated areas of neighboring countries.

Part of the resistance lies in the markedly different experiences of Albanians in recent history.

Ethnic Albanians have not lived in a unified country since the Ottoman Empire's grip over the Balkans ended in the years before World War I.

In the intervening decades, they lived under dramatically different regimes. Enver Hoxha's brutal four-decade isolationist rule of Albania _ and that of his successor Ramiz Alia _ left his countrymen cut off from the outside world until the 1990s.

Life in Marshal Tito's Yugoslavia was more sophisticated, despite the restrictions of the communist regime.

So when Albania opened its international borders for the first time in 1991, Kosovars found they had little in common with their brethren to the southwest.

But Kosovars have also likely calculated that the move would be bad for their future as well.

It was tricky enough for the province to declare independence over the vehement objections of Serbia and Russia. Calling for a pan-Albanian state would likely provoke an even stronger response, not only from Serbia but from other Balkan neighbors.

The United States and EU heavyweights France, Germany and Britain would also probably oppose any abrupt move toward Albanian unification. And Kosovars know that their new _ and barely financially viable _ country depends on the goodwill of these Western states.

Kosovo may also find that being a sovereign country is preferable to becoming a province of a larger state once more.

Sabit Bunjaku, an economist in the Kosovo capital of Pristina, used to support the idea of a Greater Albania, but now thinks it should be laid to rest. "Our demands are being fulfilled, so why ask for more?" he said.

Despite the apparent apathy for the idea of Albanian unification, concerns do persist, particularly in Macedonia, where ethnic Albanian rebels took up arms against government forces in 2001, launching a six-month conflict.

"The biggest fear for me, as a Macedonian, is that Kosovo's independence will bring only partition for Macedonia," said Marina Stevcevska, an economist in the capital, Skopje.

For its part, impoverished Albania has set its sights firmly on eventually joining the European Union and NATO _ with all the financial benefits that could bring _ and most politicians seem unwilling to jeopardize those goals.

In the end, Albanians might indeed find a unity of sorts _ under the umbrella of an expanded European Union.

Theodore Couloumbis, professor of international relations at the University of Athens, said that he sees two options for the Balkans.

They could go the route of seeking "to redefine the map, to regain or to gain territories," Couloumbis said.

The other path, he said, "and the one I hope that most people in the Balkans are opting for, is the European option."

Tito, Teto and Some Troubled Tourism Await You in Tetovo, Macedonia

Legend says that Tetovo was named after the mythical Teto, who cleared snakes from what was a village at the foot of the Šar Mountain many centuries ago. But perhaps this fable alone won't persuade you to leave the Skopje to Ohrid highway and visit this city in northwest Macedonia close to the border with Kosovo. Indeed, Tetovo has hardly been a magnet for travellers. For a long time the only tourists near here were those en route to Macedonia's most famous ski resort, Popova Šapka.

Unfortunately, to most outsiders, Tetovo is not renowned for its skiing facilities. Rather, it has a more forbidding reputation. It is the scene of the Albanian separatist National Liberation Army's (NLA) fierce clashes with Macedonian security forces in the 2001 conflict.

But the Albanian minority's unofficial capital, at one time part of the Ottoman Empire, as well as belonging to Serbia, Great Albania and Yugoslavia – and also the refuge for a considerable number of tsarist officers after the Russian Revolution – offers a pleasant and friendly surprise.

Tetovo's central square is not exactly enticing. It has the usual combination of broken pavements and dilapidated monuments, relics of the Communist era under Marshal Tito, the former Yugoslavian leader who tried to steer his own path between East and West.



Tito's buildings are of an architectural style designed to prove the superiority of his brand of Communism over Todor Zhivkov's. Just don't expect any earth-shattering contrast to Bulgaria!

But don't give up on Tetovo just yet. Turn left into Ilindenska Street and reach the humpback stone bridge over the Pena River. There you will see, rising on the other side of the river, a building that can rightfully claim to be the world's most colourful mosque. And the interior is just as striking as its façade.



The walls of the Aladzha Mosque, also known as Šarena Dzamija, or the “Painted” Mosque, are covered with geometrical shapes in green, blue, ochre and red – a truly delightful sight. And, thankfully, the building forms just part of a brighter enclave in an otherwise drab location.

Surrounding the mosque is a small park with well-maintained rosebushes and towering trees that provide a welcome contrast to the neglected central square. The Pena River babbles at its side and an abandoned Turkish bath cuts across it, part of an old complex of inns around the mosque.



Until fairly recently it housed a restaurant that went by the rather pretentious name of “Sheraton”. The octagonal turbe, or tomb, with the remains of Hurshida and Mensure, the women who founded the complex (the first building was finished in 1459), is right in front of the mosque.

“Do you like it? They used 30,000 eggs to make the paint.” A friendly young schoolgirl from the building's top-floor religious school approached us inside the mosque to practise her English. But most children are shy and only speak Albanian, the second official tongue in the Macedonian Republic since 2002.

The addition of the second language stemmed from provisions in the peace treaty that ended the conflict. Under its terms any language spoken by more than 20 percent of the population became, like Macedonian, an official state language. The Albanians, numbering just over 25 percent, are the only group eligible. But tolerance of another tongue has failed to dissolve simmering tensions. Since the republic split from Yugoslavia after a 1991 referendum, relations between Tetovo's two largest ethnic groups have been precariously poised between peace and war.

The South East European University was part of the problem. Established illegally in several houses in the nearby village of Mala Rechica, it became the country's first institution to teach students in Albanian. Legalised in 2001, it now has its own web page and is a rival to Tetovo State University.



But the Bektashi monks in the nearby Harabati Baba Tekke, a Dervish lodge, have a long history of hardship. Situated outside the city, by the large new cemetery at the foot of Popova Šapka, the monastery has a conspicuous three-storey, ultramarine-painted tower. The monks claim the tower was the last home of a high-ranking Albanian named Roxalana, who died of tuberculosis there. According to a more popular theory, it was part of the monastery's defence system, founded in the 16th Century.

The tower could not protect the tekke either from being burnt by guerrillas in 1948 or from Yugoslavia's Communists, who banned its religious activities and converted it from a haven of meditation into a tourist complex comprising a hotel, restaurant and disco. In those years – ironically, the Macedonian Communist Party was founded in 1943 in Tetovo – the monastery was silent proof of the legend explaining its unofficial name, Sersem Tekke, or the Fool's Tekke.

The story, recounted by present-day Bektashi monks with suitable self-irony, relates to a dream of Ali Baba, one of Suleiman the Magnificent's most esteemed high officials. The vision of this highly respected Bektashi leader in the Ottoman Empire was so inspiring that Ali Baba decided to abandon secular life and devote himself to religious contemplation. Angered but powerless, Suleiman told his vizier: “If you will be a sersem (fool), then go.” Ali Baba settled in Tetovo, which was practically unknown at the time, and became popular as Sersem Baba. Officially, the monastery is named after Harabati Baba, the only disciple of the former vizier, who took over the institution after Ali Baba's death in 1569.



While strolling in the large monastery garden or looking at the old stones in its cemetery, you may decide that Ali Baba was a sensible man rather than a sersem. The complex, whose main buildings were constructed in the 18th Century, became the focal point for the Bektashi living in this part of the Balkan Peninsula and survived even though Atatürk banned the order in its native Turkey in 1922. According to some estimates, nearly a quarter of Muslims here belonged to this denomination at the beginning of the 20th Century.

Despite Communist persecution, the tekke quickly restored its initial activities in 1995 following an initiative by Baba Tahir Emini. Today, there are 10 to 15 Bektashi monks living there. “We just want peace and privacy. So we don't advertise ourselves and we try not to attract tourists,” one of them tells us. But sit with them under the shed – decorated with portraits of Imam Ali, the reverse clocks and pictures from Baba Tahir Emini's funeral some months ago – and the monks can be very hospitable.

Gradually, more tourists are coming. Ironically, they're attracted not by the fêted Popova Šapka, or Priest's Hat, named after an Orthodox monk's headgear, but by the religious order and its monuments that were forbidden until just a few years ago.

5-year-old boy dies under truck wheel

A five-year-old boy died Tuesday morning at about 8:40 hrs in Tetovo, after a truck owned by public utilities enterprise "Tetovo" driven by M.A., 49, run him down.

After picking up waste materials at the loading point located near the railway station, the driver set off, when he heard yelling from the passers-by to stop immediately as they saw the victim Jashko Rahimi going under the right rear wheel.

Little Rahimi died on the spot. The child's parents live in Kumanovo, but they left their son at the house of their relatives in Tetovo, located near the railway station.

After inspection conducted by a prosecutor and an investigative judge, the case was registered as an accident.

Bold police raid left six dead at a delicate time

Hundreds attended the funeral of the two Albanians killed in a military-style police raid last week in the village of Brodec in western Macedonia in an incident which threatens to stir up ethnic tensions again. Mourners were cramped into a mosque and a street in the village to which access is made difficult by a narrow, cratered road.

The raid, in which helicopters swooped in, automatic gunfire rang out and altogether six men were killed and 13 arrested, enraged the Macedonian Albanians in Brodec.

The incident now threatens to renew and ignite ethnic tensions in the area that teetered on the verge of a civil war when Albanians launched an insurgency in 2001.

Police said they had targeted a gang of fugitives from a prison in Kosovo, across the nearby border in an area largely disregarded by the local Albanian population, during the raid.

But many of Brodec's 1,300 still dazed and disbelieving inhabitants who say politics is of little interest to them, mutter that the deadly raid was politically motivated.

In their eyes, the two young local men they had come to bury and as those arrested during the raid are innocent.

"It was six in the morning, we were still in our beds when suddenly four helicopters appeared and started firing on the houses," Semsedin Selimi recalled.

While locals say that the helicopters sprayed walls, houses, the mosque and cars with bullets, Interior Minister Gordana Jankulovska described the raid as a success without "major" collateral damage.

The six men were killed after they opened fire on police, officials say, backing the claim with forensic findings, along with that of a big cache of weapons that was seized in the Brodec.

The cache of automatic weapons, explosives, mines, grenades and rocket-propelled grenade launchers was intended for for attacks on cities and institutions, according to police.

Villagers, however, say they know nothing about the weapons.

"We are simple farmers loyal to the state," said Xheleb Dauti, who was still awaiting news of two sons and two grandsons who were among those arrested.

A third of Macedonian territory, along the northern and western borders with Kosovo and Albania, is dominated by ethnic Albanians, with Tetovo, the country's second-largest city, as the economic hub.

During the 2001 conflict, the entire region, dotted by villages along the porous borders and the population hostile to Skopje authorities, was virtually inaccessible for Macedonian police.

Even later, with the peace and reform deal fully in place, there were incidents of reportedly well-armed crime bosses and warlords driving police out of villages.

The showdown over the status of Kosovo, where the Albanian majority wants to obtain independence from Serbia, has again sent ripples of tension throughout the region.

The Albanians in Macedonia and southern Serbia keep their eyes riveted on Kosovo amid negotiations in a volatile atmosphere.

Ali Ahmeti, the mayor of Tetovo, who heads the Albanian opposition Democratic Union for Integration party and led the bloody insurgency in 2001, has criticized the raid.

In his words, the incident was a warning intended to "frighten and shut up" the Albanian population in Macedonia.

In 2001, the West brokered a peace deal which ended fighting through a broad constitution reform, giving Albanians and other minorities more rights in the dominantly Slavic Macedonia.

As a result, Macedonia became a regional example of conflict resolution for the United States, the European Union and the NATO alliance.

In return, Macedonia was given he status of prospective EU member state in 2005 with hopes of being invited to join NATO in 2008.

Brodec operation was successful, State Department deputy spokesman Casey

The operation of the Macedonian police conducted in Brodec village nearby Tetovo was successful, stated State Department deputy spokesman Tom Casey at a regular press briefing in Washington. - It was a successful law enforcement operation conducted by a multiethnic police force against a group, including several wanted criminals, some of whom were recently escaped from a prison in Kosovo, Casey said.

Answering a journalist question, the State Department spokesman said that they didn't have any credible information that the group had Wahhabist ties.

- We're pleased that they nonetheless have been arrested and that some of the materials they were carrying were confiscated. And we certainly encourage the authorities to move quickly to restore normalcy to the village, he stated.

Macedonian Special Police Eliminate Armed Albanian Group with Paramilitary, Wahhabi Ties, Seizing Massive Arsenal

At around 5am on 7 November, an ethnically-mixed elite police force in Macedonia raided the remote, Albanian-populated village of Brodec. Their target: a group of vigilantes, led by a known Wahhabi extremist and a paramilitary partner who had been mysteriously sprung from jail in Kosovo in August. It would be the single biggest success to date for beleaguered Macedonia, chronically beset by troublemaking from Kosovo-based insurgents working in alliance with local radicals.

Unlike various similar operations carried out by the previous two Macedonian governments since 2001, innocent bystanders were not caught in the crossfire and there was no large-scale property destruction. The smooth handling of the operation won the interior ministry praise from foreign officials such as Victoria Nuland, US ambassador to NATO, who stated, “we were informed on the operation. We were especially impressed by the fact that multi-ethnic police forces carried out the tasks.”

Indeed, the operation – grandiosely dubbed ‘Mountain Storm,’ after the Sar Planina Mountain range where the villages of Brodec, Vejce and Vesela are located – was very successful, with six fugitives, including the Wahhabi ringleader, Ramadan Shiti, being killed, and 13 other terrorists captured. In the dramatic gun battle that ensued, only one policeman was injured. However, one of the most wanted men – Lirim Jakupi, self-proclaimed ‘Commander Nazi’ – escaped. Criminal charges on grounds of terrorism have been submitted against all 17 members of the group, as well as the four remaining fugitives, thought to be led by Jakupi.

Although the interior ministry at first stated officially that the killed and captured men were mere ‘criminals,’ the astonishingly large variety of weapons seized – enough for waging a small war – in houses and fields near Brodec belied that assertion. So did the fact that some, such as leader Shiti, have previously been linked with the Saudi-backed Wahhabi Muslim sect’s attempts to take control of the Islamic communities in Macedonia and Kosovo. Indeed, during the operation, Ramadan Shiti reportedly died as a suicide bomber, igniting the grenade he was carrying when surrounded by police.


Ready for War

Macedonia’s Minister of Interior, Gordana Jankuloska, stated for media on 9 November that the Brodec haul was “the largest amount of [heavy] weaponry… seized thus far” in Macedonia. The arsenal included everything from sniper rifles, assault rifles, dynamite, hand grenades, mortars and thousands of bullets to artillery pieces, RPG launchers and laser-guided anti-aircraft missiles. The cache was deemed “sufficient to equip a battalion of 650 soldiers.” Indeed, black nationalist paramilitary uniforms were also found (the gang had been allegedly involved in conducting nighttime uniformed roadblocks in recent weeks in the area). The impressive haul, which also included nationalist booklets and weaponry manuals, was laid out for journalists and military attaches to inspect at police barracks in the western Skopje suburb of Gjorce Petrov on 9 November.

Other clear indications of the long-term war plans of the militant group became apparent when television crews showed the professional-standard bunkers dug into the mountainside above the village, stocked with sleeping bags, large bags of onions and potatoes, and other rations. The structures even included improvised shower cabins and beds. Both cars and horses had been used to bring in supplies from the nearby mountain border with Kosovo, as well as from Tetovo and other places. According to retired Army Col. Blagoja Markovski, now with the Balkan Security Forum, “the [terrorists] came in this region two or three months ago… with a plan, and were preparing for military actions.”

Countdown

The operation followed several weeks of tracking the fugitives, who were moving “throughout the tri-border area” between Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia, aided by a large network of safe houses, stated one ranking military intelligence officer for Balkanalysis.com. However, the authorities also had their own network of local informers. “We contributed information from our side to the police, as did the Serbian government and KFOR [in Kosovo].” Finally, the special police unit, composed of officers of both Macedonian and Albanian ethnicities, pounced on Brodec in the early hours, sealing off the village and setting up checkpoints on access roads. The plans were finalized after the green light was given by US Ambassador Gillian Milovanovic and EU Special Representative Erwan Fouere, joked the officer- “our real ‘president’ and ‘prime minister.’”

Action

According to published accounts quoting police participants, the militants began firing first, forcing the police to shoot back. The battle took place in and around several houses in the village, as well as the Brodec mosque, which was being used as an arsenal by the gang. When the shooters were killed, police were able to scour the adjoining territory, discovering more arms caches and the bunkers, set in strategic places on the mountainside, with commanding views of the village and Tetovo beneath. Individuals killed in the operation included Hisni Ameti, also known as ‘Commander Cevaj,’ and Imer Gavazi (42), both from Kosovo; Bekim Memeti (21) from Tetovo; Ferat Sahini (20) and Fidan Fejzulahu (24), both from Brodec; and Ramadan Shiti (24), from Kosovo.

Shiti had already escaped twice from prison, once in Macedonia and once in Kosovo, and was wanted as an accomplice in the murder of a Skopje taxi driver and for participating in a bomb attack on the Bit Pazar police station in Skopje in July 2005.

However, while Shiti may be dead, according to Macedonian intelligence sources surveyed by Balkanalysis.com, some of his major accomplices in those crimes are still at work in Kosovo, developing the growth of radical Islamist cells there, with support from Saudi and other Arab countries channeling funds via diaspora Albanian radicals in Milan, Italy as well as Austria and Bosnia.

The Macedonian government claimed that the August ‘escape’ from Dubrava Prison of Shiti, Jakupi and co. was not a matter of luck, but done purposefully by ‘certain structures’ eager to provoke unrest to influence the Kosovo status process around the scheduled conclusion of ‘final’ negotiations between Serbs and Albanians on 10 December. That said, the bold, professional and unexpected operation was a sign of how far the country has come since the 2001 war, when unnecessary collateral damage and widespread leaks precluded efficient operations.

The present raid was very impressive, thus, in that it involved a multi-ethnic police force, operating in hostile and remote territory, and in that it unfolded amidst total secrecy. The fact that innocent bystanders were not affected also speaks well for the interior ministry’s newfound professionalism; this outcome is crucial as critics such as the opposition DUI party of former NLA boss Ali Ahmeti cannot claim it to have been an attack on the Albanian people, and thus use it to provoke knock-on violence.

Future Developments

On 9 November, Macedonian Intelligence Agency Director Viktor Dimovski was quoted as stating that Macedonia “is not under any immediate threat” of attacks from abroad following Operation Mountain Storm. However, rumblings from Kosovo and from NLA war veterans indicate that new provocations may occur. A shadowy, Tetovo-based separatist organization, calling itself the Political-Military Council of the KLA, claimed that the Jakupi-Shiti group was linked to them, and swore it would defend Albanian “national honor” through violence.

The still unknown organization claims that it has created paramilitary groups allegedly “to protect the endangered Albanian people, and every inch of Albanian territory.” In a statement relayed by Serbia’s B92, the group vows that “there can be no stable political or military solution, peace or stability in the turbulent Balkans without respect and implementation of a decision taken at a conference in Bujan for self-determination (Kosovo, and unification with Albania), and for institution of a military oath for all three liberation armies – Kosovo, Eastern Kosovo (Preševo, Bujanovac, Medveđa), and Macedonia.”

For his part, the better known local radical Xhezair Shaqiri (“Commander Hoxha”) threatened to “square accounts” with the Interior Ministry, reported Sitel Television, stating “we will wait for the police wherever they come.” Unlike the obscure “Political-Military Council,” Commander Hoxha begged ignorance of the culprits in Brodec shootout.

There are signs, however, of a certain momentum building up as Macedonia shows it is serious about cleaning up the territory from would-be troublemakers, and that outsiders are beginning to respect this. Three days after the police operation, the Kosovo government extradited another Albanian, Zaim Halili, to Macedonia. Halili had been wanted for the murder of Fatmir Alili, the (also Albanian) police chief of Matejce village, north of Kumanovo. In the attack of 9 September, which also involved two other accomplices, two Macedonian policemen, Janche Kitanov and Sladjan Kostovski were injured.

To conclude, the government’s success in eliminating paramilitary threats on their own turf and before they have time to position heavy weaponry is a dramatic and unprecedented defeat for the Albanian irredentists who would like to sever the western third of Macedonia for themselves. There are a number of reasons for this. A significant one is that the Macedonian police are much better trained and equipped than they were six, or even three years ago. The second vital factor is that they received cooperation from locals; indeed, without tips from local Albanians, discovering the vigilantes and their stashed weapons would have been much more difficult. Interestingly, a local Albanian from Brodec interviewed by television journalists stated that had the police in 2001 done such a ‘neat’ operation in the beginning of the war, it could have been stopped before escalating out of control. This week’s operation shows that the Macedonian security forces have come a long way in that time.

Macedonia displays seized arms, seeks terror charges

The operation, which officially left six gunmen dead, 11 wounded and 13 arrested, was carried out in the villages at the foot of Mt. Šara, and was dubbed Mountain Storm.

The presentation took place at Gjorce Petrov police barracks today, attended by police attaches within foreign embassies in Skopje, the country's state television MRT reported.

Interior Minister Gordana Jankulovska also addressed some members of an police rapid deployment unit, who took part in massive raids earlier this week.

The group that clashed with police was thought to be headed by Ramadan Shiti and Lirim Jakupi, a.k.a. Nazi, who escaped from Dubrava prison in Kosovo a few months ago. Shiti was killed in the showdown, while Jakupi was not captured.

Yesterday, Croatian television HRT reported that Priština daily Koha Ditore carried a statement by a group calling itself the Political-Military Council of the KLA, which said it was behind the incident.

Today, it emerged authorities are seeking charges of terrorism against 13 suspected ethnic Albanian extremists who were arrested with the massive weapons cache that included anti-aircraft missiles and artillery pieces.

Police spokesman Ivo Kotevski said the government would recommend that charges of terrorism and activities against the state be filed against the suspects — all men — and four accomplices who evaded arrest.

Authorities said weapons were sufficient to equip a battalion of 650 soldiers. They included laser-guided anti-aircraft missiles, artillery pieces, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, sniper rifles, assault rifles, dynamite, hand grenades, mortars and thousands of bullets, police said.

"This is the largest amount of weaponry ever seized (in Macedonia), with huge destructive power," Interior Minister Gordana Jankuloska said Friday.

Police described the gunmen with him as members of a "criminal gang" but on Friday suggested their motives may have been political.

"The seized bombs, grenades and mortars clearly show the criminal gang planned larger operations," a police official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity, as he was not authorized to comment on the case.

Authorities said they could not say where the weapons had come from and have not identified all the gunmen killed.

Police spokesman Kotevski said one of the gun battle victims was Shiti, who committed suicide, placing a hand grenade under his body when he discovered he was surrounded.

Ethnic Albanians make up about a quarter of Macedonia's 2 million people.

Official findings wrapped up, six deaths confirmed

An official report, issued by deputy prosecutor general and investigative judge, confirmed the death of six people during Wednesday's operation "Mountain Storm".

Makfax's correspondent in Tetovo quotes the investigative officials as saying that one of the bodies, blown-up by hand bomb explosion is presumed to be the body of escaped fugitive Ramadan Shiiti.

The bodies were transported to Skopje's funeral enterprise Butel to undergo official identification. The bodies will undergo an autopsy.

Four of the bodies were found near a mosque in Brodec, whilst two other bodies were found at a site near the village on the road to Veshala.

Police uncovered large quantity of weapons. The gunmen used all types of weapons - trench mortars and light infantry weapons.

Deputy prosecutor and investigative judge confirmed that there were no casualties among police force.

Unofficial reports say 12-15 suspects have been detained so far. The extremist criminal gang included members from Macedonia, Albania and Kosovo.

New Albanian Military Unit Takes Credit for Action in Macedonia

B92 reports an Albanian group that now calls itself the Political-Military Council of the KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army) has taken credit for the gun battle yesterday with Macedonian police in three villages near the Sara Mountains near Tetovo. In their internet statement, the unit said it was formerly the "Albanian Territory Liberation Army" and has now been forced to form a regular military unit in order to protect what it called the "endangered Albanian people and every inch of Albanian territory." That of course involves more than just Kosovo in Serbia but also parts of Macedonia, Greece and perhaps also Bulgaria. The statement described yesterday's firefight as being in "defense of national honor" and called the police response "an attack by Macedonian-Slav authorities on the Albanian people." [B92]

The group also expressed their view of the negotiations over Kosovo that have been conducted for more than a year. "We consider all Slav-Albanian agreements emanating from the wars in Kosovo and Albanian territory, as well as the participants, null and void." The group is based in Tetovo and ended its statement with this ominous warning. "There can be no stable political or military solution, peace or stability in the turbulent Balkans without respect and implementation of a decision taken at a conference in Bujan for self-determination (Kosovo and unification with Albania) and for institution of a military oath for all three liberation armies- Kosovo, Eastern Kosovo (Presevo, Bujanovac, Medveda) and Macedonia."

The last thing NATO and the European Union (EU) need is for countless, well armed Albanian liberation units emerging as Islamic units have been doing in Iraq with direct support from Tehran, which is why I suspect this new group's statement was written in Tehran, especially the statement mentioning the "turbulent Balkans". That is exactly what Tehran wants to see chaos in the region engulfing every unit the West sends to restore stability and the silencing of Vienna in the process ending the UN agency's investigation into Iran's nuclear weapons program. Tehran is supporting-arming the most disenfranchised powerless people in the region with a national identity, the Albanian, which makes them the most hateful and therefore one of Iran's best weapons in the European continent. As always, Tehran is an expert at using availability and identifying with it. Iran wants the turbulence to spread beyond the Balkans.