SKOPJE, (Islamweb & News Agencies) -NATO troops begin the task of collecting ethnic Albanian fighters' weapons at dawn Monday, just hours after two bomb blasts and amid a row with the Macedonian government over the number of arms to be handed in.(Read photo caption below)
In the latest violence, a large bomb exploded in northern Skopje late Sunday, causing substantial damage but no injuries, police sources said.
Earlier in the day two security guards were killed in northwest Macedonia when a motel owned by Macedonians was blown up near the mainly-ethnic Albanian town of Tetovo, state television said.
In other unrest Macedonian police and ethnic Albanian fighters exchanged gunfire near the northwestern town of Tetovo late Sunday, just hours before NATO troops were due to begin collecting Albanian arms, police sources said.
The problems facing the multi-national NATO force have been increased by a growing row with the Macedonian government over its target number of arms to be collected, voluntarily, from the rebels.
NATO General Gunnar Lange said Task Force Harvest, as the 4,500- to 5,000-strong force is known, will collect 3,300 weapons not including side arms or ammunition.
"This is not just a gesture," Lange said. "The path will not be easy but the alternative is clear, the alternative is war.
But Macedonia rejected NATO's figures saying they would only encourage the Albanian National Liberation Army (NLA) to keep fighting.
Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski, a nationalist, rebuffed NATO estimations of numbers once again earlier on Sunday, describing them as "laughable and humiliating for Macedonia".
Essential Harvest is part of a wider peace agreement aimed at bringing an end to conflict that began in February when Albanian fighters began fighting, ostensibly for improved rights for Macedonia's large Albanian minority.
The peace accord, reached between political leaders on August 13, offers an amnesty to the fighters who give up their arms and who are not wanted for war crimes.
It also provides for constitutional amendments that would make Albanian an official language in some areas and boost the number of Albanians in local police forces in areas with a large Albanian population.
Ethnic Albanians make up around a quarter of Macedonia's Slav-dominated population of two million people.
NATO will try to collect one third, or 1,100, of the Albanian weapons by Friday when Macedonia's parliament meets to debate the implementation the peace agreement.
NATO and government representatives have been debating for days how many weapons the Albanians should hand over for destruction during the alliance's arms collection mission in the troubled Balkan country.
PHOTO CAPTION:
Macedonian children wave to British soldiers from a Pathfinder platoon as they pass through the outskirts of Skopje August 26, 2001. NATO set a target of 3,300 weapons to be gathered from Albanian fighters under plans to defuse six months of ethnic conflict in Macedonia. (Petr Josek/Reuters)
- Aug 26 3:03 PM ET