According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the incident started in the bar "Aha", when drunk American soldiers began to harass the guests.
After raging in the bar "Aha", the soldiers headed towards Makedonija square and continued to disturb public order with violent and rude behavior. At the square, a small group of revolted Skopjans got in a fight with the drunk KFOR soldiers. At that moment, a policeman was passing through the square by chance and tried to prevent a fight. However, he was roughly prevented in that and in the process was inflicted physical injuries by the American soldiers. That policeman called for reinforcements on his radio and several minutes later several Police vans arrived from the Police station "Centar". At the same time the KFOR military police showed up and they and Macedonian policemen joined in breaking up the fight. The Macedonian Police arrested 30 soldiers and took them to the Police station "Centar".
Unofficially, we learned that during the same night an incident also occurred at the trading center in the Kapistec district of Skopje. Witnesses claim that a drunk American marine beat up a Macedonian policeman. Several minutes later, about ten more policemen arrived and they overpowered the marine by force and took him to a police station.
These two incident are not unique. On Monday night a group of American soldiers disturbed public peace and order in the City shopping center in Skopje. The soldiers had previously been guests at the café "Hollywood" inside the shopping center. After leaving the café, drunk KFOR soldiers behaved violently, harassed passers by and urinated on the shop windows. After that they tried to start a fight with the workers at the "Makpatrol" gas pump which is a part of the shopping center.
The KFOR press-center in Skopje confirmed incidents caused by the soldiers from the American KFOR Corps.
"We have been informed about the incidents provoked by our soldiers. We also know that the KFOR military police intervened together with Macedonian policemen, but we cannot provide detailed information about these unfortunate events. The Macedonian Police will later provide more detailed information about these incidents," stated KFOR spokesperson Captain Andreas Reinecke.
Our sources claim that the American marines were a part of the NATO contingent which participated in the exercise "Dynamic Response", which is currently under way in Kosovo.