By Stavros Tzimas - Kathimerini

THESSALONIKI - Controversy surrounds an announcement by the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia's Interior Ministry that its special forces on Saturday shot seven foreign members of a terrorist organization who were allegedly planning to attack the US, German and British embassies in the capital, Skopje.

According to a police statement, the seven people were of Arab and Pakistani origin, although no evidence was produced to that effect. They were seen driving a truck from the foothills of the Crna Gora range toward the capital. Following a tipoff, four officers of the special security squad set up a roadblock near the village of Ljuboten and shot all seven. They reportedly found weapons and uniforms of the rebel ethnic Albanian National Liberation Army (NLA) in the truck.

However, foreign diplomatic circles in Skopje said there was some doubt as to the identity of the dead suspects. Police had shown Western diplomats the bodies of two people they claimed were terrorists but offered no proof of the victims' identities.

Diplomatic sources also noted that although the shooting took place near a residential area, no one heard or saw anything.

The German Deutsche Welle radio station raised the question of how four police officers managed to kill seven determined terrorists without suffering any losses. The local Albanian-language newspaper «Facti» claimed the incident appeared to be the work of Interior Minister Ljube Boskovski. Comment by the Slav-Macedonian press has been subdued, according to Western diplomats, for fear of giving credence to the accusations by ethnic Albanians.

One Western diplomat suspected that the men may have been killed elsewhere and their bodies claimed as those of terrorists for reasons that served Boskovski's own purposes. As of last night, the Interior Ministry had not responded to these questions.