 The slaying of the eight commandos, which was an enormous loss for a country of only two million people, provoked the first civilian backlash by Macedonians grouped in sinister new paramilitarystyle, ‘self-defence’ organisations in the southern city of Bitola, 170 kilometres (120 miles) south of Skopje, from where four of the dead soldiers came.Ethnic Macedonian crowds looted and set fire to Albanian shops.In Tetovo's old town, a sandbag checkpoint near the Church of St. Nicholas suffered frequent shelling from houses in the highlands.