Macedonia troops battle for village

The army said it captured rebel artillery

LJUBODRAG, Macedonia -- Fighting has continued between Macedonian troops and ethnic Albanian rebels for control of a northeastern village.

The village, Matejce, was shelled on Saturday, as well as the nearby villages of Slupcane and Otlja, about 20 km (13 miles) northeast of the capital Skopje.

Villagers of Ljubodrag, a Slav Macedonian village less than three kilometres (1.8 miles) away, used to the shelling, continued working on their fields as smoke billowed in the sky and gunfire could be heard.

The army said it was attacked through the night from rebels positioned in the medieval Orthodox monastery above Matejce and in the village mosque.

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"We fought a fierce battle yesterday which continued late into the night," army spokesman Blagoja Markovski told Reuters news agency.

Security forces launched an assault on Matejce on Friday.

Tanks and armoured personnel carriers moved into the village and bursts of small and big calibre automatic fire came from the village the rebels infiltrated last week.

At least 8,000 mostly ethnic Albanian villagers have been trapped in the northeastern mountains since the latest bout of fighting began on May 3.

The village of Lipkovo, where most civilians were concentrated, sheltering in basements, has been quiet in recent days. Food and water is said to be in short supply.

The government says civilians were being used as human shields by the National Liberation Army (NLA) rebel force in its five-month campaign for greater rights for the country's ethnic Albanian minority.

But some of the refugees who have left the area said their relatives would rather stay in the crossfire than face unfriendly Macedonian troops.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said on Saturday the aid organisation would make renewed attempts to reach the civilians.

"We are still trying to get access to the civilians but we still do not have enough security guarantees," spokeswoman Annick Bouvier told Reuters.

President Boris Trajkovski is due to resume talks late on Sunday with the main parties in the government coalition, which was on the brink of collapse last week after ethnic Albanian leaders met the NLA political representative, Ali Ahmeti.

Talks were likely to cover Trajkovski's proposal of a partial amnesty to persuade rebels to lay down their arms.

After a meeting between NATO southern commander James Ellis and Trajkovski on Friday, a source in the presidential administration said NATO had given general backing to the amnesty proposal.

Ahmeti has said the amnesty must be examined by "international courts."

The latest fighting came a day after clashes outside Tetovo, Macedonia's second-largest city, where the insurgency began in late February.

The army said eight rebels were killed on Friday in the fighting there, and it re-imposed an overnight curfew in Tetovo and the northern city of Kumanovo as a precaution.