Macedonian policeman killed in ambush near Kosovo

Wed Oct 24, 2007 11:58am EDT

SKOPJE, Oct 24 (Reuters) - A Macedonian policeman was killed and two were injured when their patrol car was ambushed by armed men in a volatile region near the border with the breakaway Serbian province of Kosovo, officials said on Wednesday."

A police team patrolling the area near the Macedonia-Kosovo border was ambushed and shot at with automatic rifles," a police spokesman told Reuters."They lost control and their vehicle crashed."The incident took place near the border post of Kodra Fura. The area is not far from the village of Tanusevci, an ethnic Albanian enclave that was at the centre of a 2001 separatist insurgency that was resolved by NATO and EU diplomacy.

Armed gangs and smugglers have carved out a police no-go area around Tanusevci, heightening fears of regional unrest if ethnic Albanians in Kosovo lose patience with the West's stalled efforts to grant them independence from Serbia.