Macedonia arrests Muslim group suspected of murders

Macedonian police announced Tuesday that they arrested 20 radical Muslims, suspected to be members of a terrorist group which has been linked to the murder of five Macedonians in early April.

“The ministry of the interior found the perpetrators of the horrific killings at Smilkovsko lake” near Skopje, Interior Minister Gordana Jankulovska told a press conference.

Twenty radical Muslims, mostly Macedonians, some of whom had been “fighting in Afghanistan and Pakistan against NATO soldiers”, were arrested.

Jankulovska said some of those arrested were directly involved in the murder of the five men, one 45 years old and the others aged between 18 and 22.

The victims were found lined up with gunshot wounds by a popular fishing pond earlier this month.

“The interior ministry will file terrorism charges against them,” she added, explaining that their motive was “to incite fear and insecurity”.

The murders sparked fears that tensions between Macedonians and minority ethnic Albanians could flare up again.

Relations between the two main communities remain scarred from a 2001 armed conflict between government security forces and ethnic Albanian rebels.