Macedonia clash leaves two dead

A police commander and a gunman have been killed in a clash in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia near the border with Kosovo, authorities say.

Police were attacked when they arrived at the village of Vaksince on Monday night to arrest a suspect, the interior ministry said.

Two police officers and two gunmen were also wounded in the exchange.

The two who died were both ethnic Albanians - the dominant community in Kosovo, which remains part of Serbia.

The area where the clash occurred was the centre of an ethnic Albanian insurgency that engulfed northern and western parts of Macedonia in 2001.

Correspondents say delays in implementing United Nations recommendations on supervised independence for Kosovo are raising tensions among ethnic Albanians, but they add that bandits are also active in the region.

Ethnic Albanians form the overwhelming majority in neighbouring Kosovo. Their bid for UN-supervised independence is supported by Western powers but opposed by Serbia and Russia.