Police in Macedonia have arrested 20 people, including radical Islamists who fought with the Taliban in Afghanistan, for the murder of five men at a lake near the capital Skopje in mid-April.
The killing of the Macedonian men, shot at close range by more than one gunman, followed a bout of intercommunal violence in the Balkan country and raised concerns of wider unrest as speculation focused on the ethnic Albanian minority.
Interior Minister Gordana Jankulovska said 20 people had been arrested in raids involving 800 police officers at more than 20 locations around the capital. “Some of them are followers of radical Islam... and some are members of a group that fought in Afghanistan and Pakistan on the side of the Taliban against NATO troops,” Jankulovska said yesterday. – (Reuters)
