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Clashes in Macedonia as First NATO Troops Arrive
SKOPJE, Aug 17 (News Agencies) - NATO advance troops arrived in Macedonia Friday to disarm Albanian activists, only hours after fresh clashes between government forces and the National Liberation Army (NLA) left one civilian dead.
An advance party of Czech paratroopers assigned to protect the task force's British headquarters detachment arrived at Skopje airport in two light transport planes shortly after 2:00 pm (1200 GMT).
Earlier, in a sign of dangers that still face the NATO mission, a fierce gunbattle erupted along the tense frontline between the government forces and the NLA, Macedonian military sources said.
A 70-year-old Albanian civilian was killed early Friday, hospital sources said, as fighting broke out in and around the northwestern town of Tetovo following the killing of a policeman late Thursday.
A NATO spokesman said the latest fighting would not delay the mission.
"I think it would be wrong to think that there is going to be complete silence every night," Major Alex Dick, spokesman for Britain's rapid-reaction 16 Air Assault Brigade, told the news conference.
"We do have the ability to provide adequate force protection. However, any deployment of weapons collection teams would not go-ahead until we believe that the conditions on the ground are correct," he said.
Captain Olda Napravnik, who will oversee the Czech deployment, said that 16 of his men had arrived and that another 104 would follow early Saturday.
The first British unit, a party of 50 headquarters officers and support staff was to arrive at 8:30 pm, NATO spokesman Major Barry Johnson said. Some 40 members of an elite British airborne brigade departed Friday for Macedonia.
Signalers and engineers from the 16 Air Assault Brigade left HQ Wattisham Station, Ipswich, eastern England, at 4:00pm (1500 GMT).
Over the next two days a further 360 British troops from the elite unit will head to the troubled Balkans state to decide whether the situation on the ground is secure enough for the deployment of a further 3,100 NATO troops, who will be charged with accepting the surrendered weapons.
Brigadier Barney White-Spunner, the commander of the British brigade leading the force, will arrive in Skopje on Friday from Naples, where he met NATO commanders, and would be at the airport to welcome the first 50 British troops, Dick said.
At the police checkpoint in the mainly Muslim Albanian northwestern town of Tetovo where the policeman was killed, three separate gunfights broke out overnight and grenades were fired at a nearby army barracks, military sources said.
Army spokesman Colonel Blagoja Markovski said Macedonian forces had also responded to what he called "provocations" and exchanged fire with activists near a string of NLA-held villages north of the capital.
Before leaving Britain, White-Spunner said: "We are going to see if the conditions are right so we can advise NATO whether to deploy this force to run the weapon collections operation."
"We are looking for a readiness on the parties to abide by the agreement [of the ceasefire]. In particular, we are looking for a commitment on behalf of all the ethnic Albanian armed groups to abide by the agreement," he said.
The NATO force's mission will be limited in time and scope.
Its mandate is limited to collecting weapons handed over voluntarily by the NLA in line with the peace accord, and once it is fully deployed it must accomplish this plan within a 30-day period.
One official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that planners were hoping to collect around 2,500 of the weapons carried by the NLA.
Defense experts have warned however that the deadline set by NATO planners is over optimistic, and Western diplomats in Skopje admit that the force may have to seek an extension to its mandate.
If operation "Essential Harvest" gets the go-ahead, Britain has said it will contribute another 600 paratroopers to its advance party, making it the largest single contingent in the task force.
France, which has supported Britain's call for swift action, will have the next largest contingent with 530 troops, and will have officers attached to the advance party.
Italy has promised 450 troops, Greece 350, Turkey 150, Spain and the Czech Republic 120 each. The German government wants to contribute up to 500 soldiers but must first persuade a skeptical parliament to accept the plan.
The United States, Belgium and Norway are planning to reassign some of their troops already in the region attached to the Kosovo peacekeeping force KFOR, to support the new operation.
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