Macedonia clashes before deadline

A Macedonian soldier aims towards the positions of ethnic Albanian rebels at the village of Vaksince, near Kumanovo

SKOPJE, Macedonia -- Ethnic Albanian rebels have fired on Macedonian troops in apparent defiance of a government ultimatum to leave the hills in the north of the country.

A Macedonian Army spokesman said insurgents in rebel-occupied villages near the border with Kosovo fired machineguns at government positions overnight and on Wednesday morning, drawing artillery rounds in response.

The fighting at Slupcane and Opaje, which have been pounded repeatedly by government troops over the past two weeks, indicated the National Liberation Army had so far paid no heed to a deadline to leave the area by noon on Thursday, Colonel Blagoja Markovski told the Associated Press.

The government is now preparing to air drop thousands of leaflets on 10 rebel-held villages in the north urging locals to leave the area before the deadline expires.

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"Your lives are endangered by the violent men who have entered your village," the leaflets declare.

Meanwhile, a European Union delegation was visiting Skopje in an effort to diffuse the growing tensions there.

The team, led by Sweden's Foreign Minister Anna Lindh, was due to meet the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia's new unity government.

CNN's Chris Burns said the continuing clashes in the Kumanovo region were making evacuation of local villages difficult amid concern over the humanitarian situation.

The Red Cross on Tuesday took advantage of a lull in the fighting to evacuate about a dozen northern villages. However, some residents refused to leave their homes.

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

Red Cross evacuated ethnic Albanians on Tuesday from northern villages, held by ethnic Albanian rebels

He 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."

Also 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.

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.

CNN's Chris Burns said there were divisions within the government over how much force troops should use against the rebels. The Albanian Party for Democratic Prosperity had argued for a softer response than that proposed by Georgievski in an effort to isolate them politically.

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.