British Troops Due to Arrive in Macedonia

A vanguard of 400 British troops starts deploying in Macedonia today as NATO meets to decide whether to risk sending a larger force to collect arms from ethnic Albanian rebels as part of a peace plan.

The Western-backed drive to avert a new Balkan war suffered a setback Thursday when a Macedonian policeman was shot dead in the northwestern town of Tetovo, apparently by a rebel sniper in defiance of a cease-fire declared Sunday.

Fierce firefights erupted in the predominantly ethnic Albanian town after the shooting.

The first planeload of 40 British soldiers was due to land at Skopje airport today as part of an advance force of North Atlantic Treaty Organization troops. The rest of the 400-strong vanguard will arrive over the weekend to set up a headquarters.

In Brussels, ambassadors of the 19 NATO governments will meet to decide whether to give a green light to sending the full complement of 3,500 troops they have agreed to make available for the former Yugoslav republic.

NATO forces would stay about two months to collect weapons due to be surrendered voluntarily by rebels at the end of a six-month conflict in return for political reforms granting greater rights to ethnic Albanians, who make up at least a quarter of Macedonia’s population of 2 million.

The U.S. military will provide medical support, transport helicopters and pilotless reconnaissance aircraft if NATO decides to send in the troops, Rear Adm. Craig Quigley, a Pentagon spokesman, said Thursday.

But the U.S. will not be involved directly at the several locations where weapons are to be collected, he said.

The NATO plan still faces many risks, however.

A NATO official in Brussels said it was unclear whether the ambassadors would decide at today’s meeting to send the full force, the alliance’s third commitment to the Balkans alongside peacekeeping missions in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo, a province of Serbia, Yugoslavia’s main republic.

NATO says it will not deploy unless there is a durable cease-fire. But an alliance source said the shooting of the policeman, the first member of the security forces killed since the cease-fire was declared, was not enough to derail plans for the mission.

Rahim Thaci, director of the medical center in Tetovo, said the police officer died of his wounds after a shooting at a checkpoint. Police sources said he was shot in the head by a sniper, sparking a fierce firefight that eased only as darkness fell. Rebels said police had fired first on civilians.