Battle of Tetovo
| Battle of Tetovo | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Macedonian War | ||||||||
 View of Tetovo |
||||||||
|
||||||||
| Belligerents | ||||||||
 Macedonia
|
 National Liberation Army (112th Brigade) |
 NATO
|
||||||
| Commanders and leaders | ||||||||
|
Boris Trajkovski Pande Petrovski Ljube Boskovski Ljubco Georgievski |
Rahim Beqiri Hamdi Ndrecaj Gezim Ostreni |
George Robertson Admiral Guido Venturoni |
||||||
| Strength | ||||||||
| 10,000+ | 2,500 – 3,000 | 4,800 | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | ||||||||
| 25 soldiers | Unknown | |||||||
The Battle of Tetovo was the largest engagement during the 2001 insurgency in the Republic of Macedonia, in which Macedonian security forces battled Albanian insurgents of the National Liberation Army for control of the city.
Tetovo is a large city in Macedonia, the majority of whose citizens are ethnic Albanians. During the break up of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, over 2,000 ethnic Albanians marched through Tetovo demanding secession from the Socialist Republic of Macedonia and unity with Albania. Self-determination of an ethnic minority within a state was not a right under the Socialist Republic of Macedonia’s constitution, and protesting their lack of representation under the constitution of a new Republic of Macedonia, the Albanians of Macedonia boycotted the referendum on independence from Yugoslavia and were thus excluded from almost any representation in the new government. Tetovo became headquarters of the new Albanian political parties, which were regarded as unconstitutional by the Republic of Macedonia. Tensions worsened, Tetovo, along with the city of Gostivar, took in and sheltered several thousands of Bosnian Muslim refugees from 1992 until the end of the Bosnian war. Prior to the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia over Kosovo, Tetovo became the rear supply base for the Kosovo Liberation Army, and then later home to over 100,000 Kosovar refugees from the Kosovo war.Gligorov’s plan to re-allocate the Kosovar refugees to Albania via refugee corridor through Macedonia had been abandoned, and the refugees began to gather in Tetovo, Gostivar and the western Albanian dominated towns during the late summer months. The KLA began to use the Tetovo hospital to treat the wounded combatants. As the ethnic Albanian unofficial capital in Macedonia, Tetovo was crowded with refugees from Kosovo and was deeply involved in the munitions supply to the KLA.
...
Wikipedia