Tearce attack | |||||||
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Part of 2001 insurgency in Macedonia | |||||||
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The Tearce attack was an attack carried out by the National Liberation Army on a Macedonian police station in Tearce, North Macedonia. This attack marked the beginning of the 2001 insurgency in Macedonia. [4] As a result of the attack, one police officer was killed and three others were injured and the NLA captured Tearce. [5]
North Macedonia, located between Kosovo and Serbia, had largely evaded the prolonged conflicts that characterized Bosnia and Kosovo during the 1990s. Despite occasional tensions, relations between the ethnic Macedonian majority and Albanian minority had remained largely peaceful and the Macedonian government and parliament had been characterized by the inclusion of ethnic Albanian political parties. However, in early 2001, the National Liberation Army (NLA), an ethnic Albanian separatist militia, increased attacks on Macedonian security forces. [6]
The attack took place on January 22, 2001, on a Monday at 2:00 AM in the village of Tearce, which is inhabited largely by ethnic Albanians. [7] During the attack, three or four NLA militants armed with a Chinese rocket launcher and two Kalashnikovs attacked a Macedonian police station. The militants killed the police officer Momir Stojanovski in the attack, who was killed by the RPG grenade, while three other policemen were seriously injured. [8] [9] [10] The injuries were believed to have been sustained from the two grenades fired at the station. [11]
The NLA claimed responsibility for the attack. After the attack in Tearce, the village was held by the NLA. [12] However, Macedonian police reported that the militants operated independently. Police spokesman Stevo Pendarovski reported, "These extreme radical individuals are not part of an organised group." [10]
The attack in Tearce was the first attack in the conflict. [5] The clashes directly led to the nine-month-long armed insurgency in Macedonia. Several days later, Albanians in the conflict areas were arrested and the NLA and Macedonian police engaged in an hour-long Battle in Tanuševci on the Kosovar-Macedonian border.[ citation needed ]
The Liberation Army of Preševo, Medveđa and Bujanovac was an Albanian militant insurgent group fighting for separation from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia for three municipalities: Preševo, Medveđa, and Bujanovac, home to most of the Albanians in south Serbia, adjacent to Kosovo. Of the three municipalities, two have an ethnic Albanian majority, whilst Medveđa has a significant minority of them.
The National Liberation Army, also known as the Macedonian UÇK was an ethnic Albanian militant and separatist militia that operated in the Republic of Macedonia in 2001 and was closely associated with the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). Following the 2001 insurgency in Macedonia, it was disarmed through the Ohrid Framework Agreement, which gave greater rights and autonomy to the state's Macedonian Albanians.
The 2001 insurgency in the Republic of Macedonia was an armed conflict which began when the ethnic Albanian National Liberation Army (NLA) insurgent group, formed from veterans of the Kosovo War and Insurgency in the Preševo Valley, attacked Macedonian security forces at the end of January 2001, and ended with the Ohrid Agreement, signed on 13 August of that same year. There were also claims that the NLA ultimately wished to see Albanian-majority areas secede from the country, though high-ranking members of the group have denied this. The conflict lasted throughout most of the year, although overall casualties remained limited to several dozen individuals on either side, according to sources from both sides of the conflict. With it, the Yugoslav Wars had reached the Republic of Macedonia which had achieved peaceful independence from Yugoslavia in 1991.
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The Aračinovo crisis was a series of events triggered by the occupation of the village of Aračinovo, in the outskirts of the Macedonian capital Skopje, by the insurgent National Liberation Army (NLA) in June 2001 and the consequent attempts by the Macedonian army (ARM) to retake the settlement. The Macedonian attack resulted in a standoff with NATO, whose troops evacuated the besieged rebels after a ceasefire accord. The crisis is considered to be the turning point in the Macedonian war of 2001, and one of its most controversial incidents.
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Combatants
The Battle of Tanuševci was the first gun battle between the National Liberation Army (NLA) and the Macedonian security forces in the insurgency in Macedonia.