MACEDONIA BALKANS FIGHTING

A hooded Macedonian police officer on top of an APC patrols through downtown Tetovo, some 40 km (25 miles) west of Skopje, Friday Aug. 10 2001. At least nine Macedonian soldiers were killed and six were injured after their truck hit a land mine close to Skopje, threatening a tentative peace deal to avert all-out war. The explosion occurred some 10 kilometers (6 miles) north of the capital, near the villages of Ljubanci, when a convoy of army trucks drove over a land mine that had been planted on the road, and attacked by the ethnic Albanian rebels later. (AP PHOTO / Nikos Giakoumidis)