[The Slav-dominated Macedonian army fires at the ethnic Albanian strong- hold village of Nikushtag, some 20 km north-east of the capital Skopje on June 26, 2001. Read photo caption below].

SKOPJE, (Islamweb & Agencies) - Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski on Tuesday defended a controverisal NATO-backed plan to transport hundreds of armed ethnic Albanian fighters out of a Skopje suburb, saying it had removed a direct threat to the capital.
He warned that the reaction of an armed mob that fired into the air outside the parliament and destroyed his office late Monday after the Muslim Albanian withdrawal was orchestrated by "internal" agitators who could tip the country into civil war.
"It was a success," Trajkovski said on national television, adding that the pullout had fulfilled its aim of removing hundreds of what he called heavily armed "terrorists" from the very edge of Skopje.
The ethnic Albanian fighters have been waging a tenacious armed struggle against the Slav dominated Macedonian forces for five months in the name of winning more rights for ethnic Albanians in the country.
The fact that US troops from the Kosovo peacekeeping force transported the fighters with their arms back to safer terrain in the Black Mountains above Skopje enraged Macedonian Slavs, thousands of whom protested outside the parliament, letting off dozens of bursts of automatic rifle fire.
Many Slavs already see the West as pro-Albanian for backing the Kosovo Liberation Army two years ago in its battle against Belgrade's former hardline regime, just across Macedonia's northern border.
"It was the quickest and most efficient way to avoid casualties," insisted Trajkovski, whose forces lost four dead and around 30 injured in three days of heavy fighting that failed to dislodge the Albanian fighters.
But for the mob of at least 6,000 furious Slavs who gathered outside the parliament building -- which is also the president's official residence -- the move was seen as a betrayal, and they called on Trajkovski to resign.
But the Macedonian president appealed for calm, saying that peaceful political dialogue with the large ethnic Albanian minority was the only way ahead.
He also called on the self-styled National Liberation Army (NLA) to lay down its weapons.
"I can understand the anger in front of parliament but I can't understand the firing, which could tip us into a civil war," he warned.
He said the protests appeared to have been orchestrated by "internal currents" at all level of state. He gave no hint of who might have been behind the unrest.
He said the elements had been alarmed that his peace plan to slowly disarm and amnesty Albanians was working and accused them of wanting to provoke a "civil crisis".
NATO, which hotly denied claims made to the angry crowd by Interior Minister Ljube Boskovski that it had forced the government to agree to the withdrawal, also said the rowdy demonstration had been the work of "agitators who have a stake in polarizing tensions between the two communities."
Trajkovski is trying to push a peace plan based on a political reform deal hammered out with ethnic Albanian politicians to address their complaints of discrimination while offering the fighters an amnesty if they down their weapons.
He said the Albanian evacuation of Aracinovo -- which the army suddenly attacked Friday despite Western calls for restraint -- was the first step in that plan, which aims to eventually bring in thousands of NATO troops to disarm the militants.
However, analysts say any future NATO deployment will meet with deep suspicion from the Slav majority, who saw the US transportation of what they call "terrorists" out of Aracinovo as a sign of collusion with the NLA.
Macedonia wanted the Albanians disarmed and dumped in Kosovo, the UN-run province of Yugoslavia blamed by Skopje for starting the crisis.
But NATO negotiators, trying to repeat their success last month in defusing an ethnic Albanian insurrection in southern Serbia, persuaded the government to allow an armed withdrawal inside Macedonia as a sign of goodwill and to remove a direct Albanian threat to the capital, just a few kilometres from Aracinovo.
Fighting also flared across the north Tuesday after a police officer was killed and four injured by Albanian mortar fire late Monday in mountains above the northwest town of Tetovo.
And in Nikustak, where the Albanians were dropped by NATO, the army said it responded to sniper fire with tanks, although a spokesman said both areas were calm later Tuesday
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PHOTO CAPTION

The Slav-dominated Macedonian army fires at the ethnic Albanian strong- hold village of Nikushtag, some 20 km north-east of the capital Skopje on June 26, 2001 as Macedonian army soldiers take shelter in a trench. The shelling coincided with a renewed appeal from the EU for a political solution to a four-month-old Albanian revolt for equal rights which has brought the country close to a wider conflict. (Oleg Popov/Reuters
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