page_title: 2001 insurgency in Macedonia
section_title: Government counter-offensive
hierarchical_section_title: 2001 insurgency in Macedonia / Fighting in Tetovo / Government counter-offensive
caption_attribution_description: English: Plan for the military action MH-2 in Tetovo, Macedonia 2001
context_page_description: The 2001 insurgency in Macedonia was an armed conflict which began when the ethnic Albanian National Liberation Army militant group, formed from veterans of the Kosovo War and Insurgency in FR Yugoslavia, attacked Macedonian security forces at the beginning of February 2001, and ended with the Ohrid Agreement, signed on 13 August of that same year. There were also claims that the NLA ultimately wished to see Albanian-majority areas secede from the country, though high-ranking members of the group have denied this. The conflict lasted throughout most of the year, although overall casualties remained limited to several dozen individuals on either side, according to sources from both sides of the conflict. With it, the Yugoslav Wars had reached previously peaceful Macedonia, which had achieved a peaceful independence from Yugoslavia in 1991.
context_section_description: After five days of guerrilla attacks against government forces in and around Tetovo, on 18 March 2001, the Macedonian government ordered a general mobilization of reservists in order to execute a wider counter-attack against the National Liberation Army's positions in the hills around Tetovo.
  The offensive of the Macedonian security forces was launched against NLA positions on the hillsides overlooking the city on 25 March 2001. While encountering fierce resistance from the rebels, more than two-hundred troops, aided by tanks and mortars, advanced about a kilometer up the hills fighting their way towards the village of Gajre. By early afternoon, the village of Gajre was captured by the police; they entered Šipkovica, but the NLA insurgents put up stiffer resistance at Lavce.
  Macedonian government forces continued to move carefully to the north of Tetovo during the second day of the offensive (26 March 2001), consolidating their control of villages that had been held by Albanian rebels for almost two weeks. After the Macedonian security forces' artillery and infantry assault, most of the NLA insurgents had abandoned their positions farther north into the mountains stretching toward Kosovo.
  On 28 March 2001, two days after the NLA was driven out from the greater part of Tetovo, Macedonian security forces launched a second offensive, this time directed at clearing the insurgents from their remaining strongholds stretching from east of Tetovo to the village of Tanuševci, north-west of Skopje. During the second offensive, the security forces attacked the NLA positions near the villages of Brest, Malino Malo, Gracani and Gosince, where clashes had taken place earlier in March before the later clashes around Tetovo. The government said the guerrillas fled northwest towards Kosovo, which they "used as a rear base".
  On 31 March 2001, the Macedonian government announced an end of its offensive against the NLA armed groups. The Macedonian government claimed to have killed a dozen NLA guerrillas during the offensive. The rebels also claimed to have killed at least a dozen Macedonian border police, however this was denied by security officials. Hospital officials in Tetovo said thirty police officers and ten civilians were wounded. One civilian, an Albanian man, was killed. NLA sources however, confirmed that during the Tetovo offensive of the Macedonian army they had lost seven armed men.
  The NLA's dislodging from the hills above Tetovo led to a month-long lull in the conflict.
caption: Plan for the military action МH-2 in Tetovo
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