FYROM: a Report from the Ongoing Security Crisis

Although the police authorities in Skopje announced that the core of the Albanian militant group with which an armed struggle took place in Saturday is over, renewed reports by local citizens as well as by some media members that crossed the security perimeter indicate that sporadic struggle continue in the town. At least 8 police members were killed, while more than 35 have been injured, a number of them critically.
Authorities in Kosovo announced that they will increase security of the border with FYROM, while official Belgrade pledged to act together with FYROM for the security of both sides of the shared border. According to some recent conflicting reports, sustained gunfire has been heard today in the large Albanian populated village of Aračinovo, on the very eastern periphery of the city of Skopje.
Meanwhile, university professor and former chief of FYROM’s intelligence community, Vladimir Pivovarov, blamed the current VMRO-DPMNE leadership, saying that the crisis was “avoidable” if intelligence community was composed of professionals, rather than by non-qualified, non-competent loyal members of VMRO-DPMNE party.
President of FYROM, Ѓorge Ivanov, who cancelled his presence in Moscow, summoned members of FYROM’s Security Council, regular ones as well as leaders of main Albanian parties as well as the leader of opposition, namely the Social-democrat Zoran Zaev.
The spokesperson for the police, Ivo Kotevski, announced that the militant group in Kumanovo has been destroyed and that 14 of its members were killed in the action, while the others, including most of their leaders, have been arrested.

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