[28] Although Macedonia had seceded from Yugoslavia as one of its poorest regions, socio-economic interventions undertaken by the consecutive democratically elected governments managed to improve the economic picture in the country.

They also lived in the north-western part of Macedonia, toward the border with the Yugoslav province of Serbia and the then-UN-administered Kosovo, as well as in the Macedonian capital Skopje and the city of Kumanovo.

[46] In the prelude to the conflict in late 2000, groups of armed Albanians started opening fire on Macedonian police and security forces located on the border with Yugoslavia.

After a month of clashes, by late February, the Macedonian special police units neutralized the positions of the NLA in Tearce and Tanuševci, temporarily driving them across the border into Kosovo.

On March, KFOR and the Macedonian forces led a joint operation against Albanian rebels in the Macedonian-Kosovar border region, which resulted in the capture of the village Tanuševci.

[57][58] Despite photographic evidence of the grenade witnesses later interviewed insisted the father and son died with mobile phones in their hands, claiming that the pair were victims of revenge by police.

Macedonian government forces continued to move carefully to the north of Tetovo during the second day of the offensive (26 March 2001), consolidating their control of villages that had been held by Albanian rebels for almost two weeks.

After the Macedonian security forces' artillery and infantry assault, most of the NLA insurgents had abandoned their positions farther north into the mountains stretching toward Kosovo.

[73] To suppress the riots, the Macedonian government imposed a curfew in Bitola, and Premier Georgievski announced that his cabinet considered declaring a state of war to have greater flexibility in fighting the NLA insurgents.

In the meantime, there was news that there was renewed fighting in the villages north of Tetovo, more than a month after the Macedonian security forces crushed the rebels in an offensive in March 2001.

[92] Because the civilians had not fled the conflict zone, to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe in Lipkovo, and to resume the supply of water to the village, a temporary ceasefire was brokered by the OSCE, and President Trajkovski ordered a halt to the offensive on 12 June.

[95] During the ceasefire, the NLA also set fire to a historic Eastern Orthodox church in Matejce, considered one of the most important cultural monuments in Kumanovo, as well as to houses of ethnic Macedonian civilians.

[97] During the month-long battles in the Kumanovo region, the Macedonian security forces managed to recapture several villages that were NLA strongholds and clear them of the insurgents' presence.

On 12 June 2001, insurgents who had previously infiltrated the area declared a "free territory" in Aračinovo, a village geographically located only a few kilometers north of Skopje.

[103] Thus, about 350 insurgents were allowed to leave the village with their weapons, with the help of US troops serving in KFOR and NATO forces in Kosovo, the OSCE and the European Union Mission, which sparked controversy.

[107] After the signing of the ceasefire agreement, and the removal of the army from the villages north of Tetovo, NATO gave guarantees to civilians who had fled the area for Kosovo, or were internally displaced, to return to their homes.

Subsequently, ethnic Albanian civilians began to return to their homes in the Tetovo villages of Selce, Lavce, Gjermo, Šipkovica, Brodec, Vešala and Vejce.

The first clash took place on 20 June 2001, when four policemen from the Raduša police station discovered an NLA camp of forty insurgents on the steps of Žeden mountain, during a patrol of the terrain on the border.

[140] In the early hours of 10 August 2001, the NLA launched an offensive from the area of Krivenik in the Kosovo Municipality of Đeneral Janković (Hani i Elezit), invading the territory of Macedonia in the region of Raduša.

[142] According to information obtained by the Macedonian intelligence service, the attack was conducted by more than six hundred NLA insurgents, supported by volunteers from the Kosovo Protection Corps.

[144] After breaking the encirclement, the army extracted the thirty-five policemen, with their equipment, and repositioned them in a more strategic position at the abandoned buildings on the Raduša mine road towards Skopje.

Although during the first two days of the battle there was a serious lack of coordination between the Macedonian military and police, the army was pressed to intervene to prevent the NLA from taking control of the whole territory around Raduša.

[20] According to Macedonian General Pande Petrovski one T-55 tank was destroyed by friendly fire in the village of Matejce[162] and another got stuck in a small river was abandoned and disabled by the crew to prevent it being used which the NLA later found and presented as a war trophy.

[168] According to the Macedonian government, there was an insurgent presence in the village; however, a Human Rights Watch investigation on the ground in Ljuboten found no direct evidence of this.

Albanian guerrilla officials have dismissed all responsibility and placed the blame on Macedonian special forces, saying it was another poor attempt to link the NLA to terrorism.

However, upon closer inspection, it was discovered that near the rubble that had once been one of the most revered religious sites for the Macedonian Orthodox Church, there lay a dead donkey, its bloated body daubed with red paint spelling out the letters UÇK, the Albanian abbreviation for the rebel National Liberation Army.

The claims were not verified by international observers,[citation needed] and to this day, the bodies have not been released to the public or to civilian investigators and autopsies were carried out in a military morgue.

However, news of the deaths sparked local riots against ethnic-Albanians in several towns and cities across Macedonia, and such revolts included burning and vandalizing shops and mosques.

After police shot and killed seven foreign men on the outskirts of Skopje in March, the government described the events as an attempted "terrorist attack" on Western embassies.

[185] According to Wim van Meurs, the allegations about a Mujahideen involvement were an attempt by Macedonian hardliners to lower Western resolve to implement the Ohrid Agreement and consolidate Macedonia as a multiethnic state.