SKOPJE, Macedonia -- Macedonia has stepped up control of its border with Serbia’s mainly ethnic-Albanian Kosovo province after one of its police patrols was attacked.
The Macedonian government dispatched a special police task team to the northern border with Kosovo following the shootings Wednesday. One Macedonian policeman was killed and another two injured in the attack, Macedonia’s MRT radio-television said Thursday.
Ivo Koteski, spokesman of the Macedonian interior ministry, said police suspected the gunmen came from Kosovo.
The three police officers were in a police vehicle touring the border area when they came under fire.
Early in September, three Macedonian men, including a police chief, were killed and another three, including two policemen, were injured in a shootout in northeastern Macedonia, close to the border with Kosovo. The three attackers in the September shooting were identified as ethnic-Albanians.
In 2001, Macedonia’s ethnic-Albanian guerrillas in northeastern regions started a rebellion demanding greater national minority rights from the government.
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