Macedonia bombards rebel positions

VAKCINCE, Macedonia -- Two people have been killed in renewed army shelling of villages in the northeast of Macedonia, reports have said.

The Macedonian military forces resumed its attack on suspected ethnic Albanian rebel areas using artillery, tanks and helicopters on Friday afternoon after issuing another deadline for residents to move out of the area.

A similar ultimatum had been given on Thursday before an assault began on the town of Vakcince and 11 villages, including Lipkovo and Slupcane.

Conflicting reports are coming out of the area about the success rate of the Macedonian bombardments and whether rebels are using human shields to protect their positions.

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Local media and International Red Cross officials said two civilians have died in the attack, but Colonel Blagoja Markovski, a Macedonian army spokesman, told the Associated Press that there had been no civilian casualties.

The mayor of Lipkovo told the Kosovalive news agency that at least seven people had been killed "and many others wounded."

Francois Stamm of the International Red Cross told CNN that two the civilians it had been called in to evacuate died during the night.

Macedonian military officials said rebels were using 3,500 women and children in the villages as a human shield, but the rebels denied the accusation.

Commander Sokoli, a leader of the rebel National Liberation Army, told the Associated Press that government forces were using "indiscriminate attacks against our civilians."

But the government said it was only attacking "legitimate targets."

Defence Ministry spokesman Georgi Trendafilov added that the action "will continue until we achieve the planned goal" and that it had inflicted "serious damage" since the offensive began on Thursday.

He said a ground assault would follow, but gave no further details.

Government spokesman Antonio Milosovski told a news conference in Skopje: "If they go by side roads or head towards the border (with Kosovo or southern Serbia), they would be viewed as legitimate targets and the armed forces may react."

A dawn-to-dusk curfew has remained in place in the region.

People appear to be staying put, though the OSCE's Stamm said more people in the affected areas seemed to be saying they would like to leave.

Carlo Ungaro, Ambassador of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, said three reasons could be possible for people being reluctant to move -- an unwillingness to become a refugee, possible intimidation by the rebels, or sympathy with them.

Imer Imeri, leader of the opposition ethnic Albanian PDP party, criticised the government's use of ultimatums, saying it was a "blunder."

"The population cannot possibly leave during that time," he said.

'Civil war'

The offensive is the second undertaken by the Macedonian army since the conflict between its security forces and ethnic Albanian rebels flared in February.

A senior Western diplomat in Skopje said there seemed to be more National Liberation Army (NLA) soldiers in the current fighting in the Kumanovo area than there had been in the previous clashes in the northwestern Tetovo region.

But he added that the numbers were in the hundreds, and not the thousands as the rebel leaders claim.

Imeri told reporters the security situation was "dramatic and could spin out of control at any moment."

NATO's Secretary-General Lord George Robertson told Reuters: "I think there must be great concern that this will descend into a spiral of violence and potentially into civil war."

He is expected to visit Skopje on Monday after the European Union's foreign and security policy chief Javier Solana arrives on Sunday.

NLA spokesman Dren Korabi told Reuters that the "situation is deteriorating every moment."

A rebel commander, Sokoli, told Albanian-language Zeri newspaper in Kosovo that his army "would not yield."

"We will not retreat until our demands are met. If the situation escalates...the NLA will spread out to all (ethnic) Albanian towns."

The rebels are fighting for improved civil rights for the ethnic Albanian population who make up about a third of the Macedonian population.

Eight Macedonian security forces men were killed in an ambush last weekend. That action was followed by the death of a further two soldiers and the kidnap of a third as they returned from a routine patrol in the area.

A special session of the Macedonian parliament scheduled for Friday to address the crisis was postponed.

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