Macedonia gives rebels deadline

Macedonian troops will not attack before Thursday, said a spokesman

SKOPJE, Macedonia -- Macedonia's new unity government has been inaugurated, on the day ethnic Albanian rebels were given two days to move out of the hills or face an army onslaught.

Rebels and civilians were given until noon on Thursday to move out of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia's northern hills.

Government spokesman Antonio Milosovski told Reuters: "This is the last deadline we are giving to the civilians to leave the villages and the terrorists to leave their positions.

"After this we will take adequate measures to finally eliminate the threat."

Milosovski said Macedonian security forces would not take offensive measures before Thursday, but they would respond if provoked.

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Earlier on Tuesday, ethnic Albanian guerrillas fired a hand-held rocket launcher at a Macedonian security force patrol, a police source told Reuters.

The missile missed its target and no one was seriously wounded, but one policeman's hand was slightly injured.

The source said: "If it had hit they would have been dead."

The ambush -- in the village of Lisec just outside of Tetovo -- was the first major incident in weeks between rebels and government troops.

But there were no reports of large-scale fighting as the 14-member Macedonian cabinet, four deputy premiers and Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski convened in the capital, Skopje, to deliberate on how to achieve stability and stave off full-blown ethnic war.

ALSO Quesions over unity plan

Alarmed by the escalating fighting between government troops and ethnic Albanian militants, Macedonia's leaders on Sunday created a broad-based coalition government, uniting all major ethnic Albanian and Macedonian Slavic parties.

The new government faces the task of bridging deep differences sparked by distrust between the majority Slavs and the ethnic Albanian minority and demands by that minority to have the country's constitution changed to guarantee them greater rights.

As the leadership met, a rescue mission organised by the International Committee of the Red Cross, exploited a lull in the fighting around the northern villages, close to the border with neighbouring Yugoslavia's Kosovo province.

On Monday aid workers rescued at least 100 civilians from three villages in northern Macedonia.

Women, children and elderly men were evacuated from the rebel-held hamlets, where they had been cowering in basements since May 3.

Government claims that they had been used as a human shield by the guerillas were denied by most villagers, who insisted that they hadn't been forced the stay against their wishes.

Eight Macedonian soldiers were killed last month during a successful ambush -- also in the Tetova area -- triggering riots and a renewed army offensive against the guerrillas.

Another attack five days later in the northeast of the country killed two more soldiers.