A Macedonian police officer was shot dead today by an ethnic Albanian sniper in the flashpoint northwestern town of Tetovo.
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A Macedonian army patrol block the road connecting the capital Skopje with the flashpoint town of Tetovo
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The officer had been stationed in a northern suburb of the town near the football stadium, which lies on the frontline between government forces and ethnic Albanian rebel-held territory.
The Macedonian government's crisis co-ordination centre said that as the shooting took place, guerrillas had mounted other "provocations" in the Tetovo area, but that government forces had not responded.
Both sides in the Macedonian conflict regularly accuse the other of breaking the tenuous ceasefire supposedly in place alongside a Western-backed peace process since July 5th.
An advance party of a proposed NATO task force set up to disarm the rebels is due to arrive at Skopje airport tomorrow, but planners are waiting to see if the ceasefire takes hold before deploying the full 3,500-strong contingent.
NATO ambassadors meeting in Brussels yesterday approved the sending of the advance contingent of 400 troops as pioneers for a mission, which will be the NATO's third in the Balkans.
AFP