During the 2001 insurgency in Macedonia, a raid was conducted by the Macedonian police against ethnic Albanian rebels in a suburb of Skopje on 7 August. The police killed the rebel group and captured their weapon supplies. Ethnic Albanian politicians acknowledged the police raid and the deaths but refused to comment. Members of the NLA and ethnic Albanians claimed the men were civilians.
Raid
The raid took place on 7 August 2001, in the Skopje suburb of Čair around 4:00a.m. (UTC+2). Five rebels were killed in the raid. According to the Macedonian interior minister Ljube Boškovski, the Macedonian police acted on information that NLA rebels were planning an attack on the capital and that they would attack from the nearby town of Aračinovo, the site of the Aračinovo crisis a month prior, after which they were evacuated by NATO forces. During the fighting in Aračinovo, the rebels claimed they would attack the capital city of Skopje, including the airport and oil refinery and that they had infiltrated cells ready to attack.
Per Boškovski, the police tried to arrest the rebels, encountered "strong armed resistance" and returned fire. He reported that 30 people were arrested in the police operation. The Macedonian police found a large quantity of weapons, including 6 assault rifles, 5 grenade launchers, 400 rounds of ammunition, 5 pistols, 3 grenades and combat uniforms. Members of Macedonia's ethnic Albanian community confirmed the deaths in the police raid but refused to comment.
Aftermath
On the following day, an investigator of the Human Rights Watch who was on the scene, Peter Bouckaert, said there was no evidence of "strong armed resistance" and that the men were lying down when they were shot. The Macedonian version of events was also disputed by Albanian sources. On the same day the NLA attacked a Macedonian army convoy near Tetovo in what would become known as Karpalak ambush, supposedly as retaliation for the 5 Albanians killed by the police during the raid.