World

Fighting Spreads In Macedonia

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

March 14, 2001 / 7:33 AM EST / CBS

As the Macedonian army fired cannon, mortar and heavy machine-gun rounds Friday on ethnic Albanians in hills overlooking Tetovo, German peacekeepers stationed nearby came under fire from the rebels, the German Defense Ministry said.

The Germans, part of the KFOR international force stationed in Kosovo, did not suffer any casualties, nor did they return fire, a German spokeswoman said. Their barracks came under small arms fire from between 50 and 60 rebels who had occupied a fortress overlooking the town.

The incident was the first in Macedonia to involve international peacekeepers.

Macedonian troops fired on the insurgents Friday for the third day, trying to push them back to Kosovo's border regions.

The guerrillas, ensconced on the foothills abutting Mount Sar Planina, responded with automatic weapons. Mortar rounds later exploded in Tetovo's central square, but it was unclear who had fired them.

At least five people -- all civilians -- were wounded in the latest bout of fighting, said Raim Thaci, director of Tetovo hospital. Four were treated and released and the fifth, in serious condition, underwent surgery, Thaci said.

Police also repelled an attack near the Tetovo suburb of Strmno, where rebels had come within 65 feet of homes, local media reported.

A new conflict appeared to be building elsewhere. Overnight shooting erupted just outside Kicevo, about 70 miles southwest of Skopje, the capital, said police spokesman Stevo Pendarovski. A police station was targeted in the village of Zajas, near the border with Albania, he added.

Direct hit on a local TV facility. (AP)SIZE>

The rebels, whose insurgency started a month ago in a village on the border with Kosovo, appeared determined to expand their struggle from that sparsely inhabited area to Macedonia's principal cities.

Ethnic Albanians account for up to one-third of Macedonia's 2 million people, dominating western regions of the country and a large section of the capital.

Outside Tetovo, Macedonia's second largest city, the boom of army artillery mixed with the Muslim call to prayer wafting from loudspeakers affixed onto mosque balconies.

Shells and rounds from 20mm cannon, heavy machine guns and mortars dug into a foothill of the mountain, sending smoke high into the air and setting shrubbery ablaze. The rebels returned fire.

The fighting left much of Tetovo without power. Television also was knocked off air.

Fearing more violence, residents of Albanian villages continued to stream down into the city in cars and tractor-drawn wagons. Some ethnic Albanian men feared they would be forcibly recruited by the guerrillas, said Petar Avranovsky, who lives in Tetovo.

Even before the newest round of fighting, police said that by Thursday evening about 400 families had eft the area.

As Macedonia's parliament met in a closed emergency session, Finance Minister Nikola Gruevski said the national budget of dlrs 1.5 billion might be revamped to redirect funds to the army and police.

Two ethnic Albanian civilians were wounded in fighting near Tetovo on Thursday. One person was killed Wednesday and at least 14 others were wounded, 11 of them policemen.

The unrest is linked both to Kosovo, a province in southern Serbia administered by the United Nations and NATO-led peacekeepers, and a buffer zone adjoining it, where Yugoslav troops deployed Wednesday. Militants in the region share aspirations for ethnic Albanian self-determination - if not outright independence.

There were no reports of trouble from Southern Serbia, neighboring Macedonia, two days after Yugoslav troops moved into an area held by ethnic Albanian insurgents. A NATO-brokered cease-fire between the rebels and Belgrade appeared to be holding.

NATO allowed the Yugoslav troops to deploy in the 10-square-mile area near the boundaries with Kosovo and Macedonia in part to stem the guerrillas' insurgency there and the movement of weapons and fighters into Macedonia.

While stepping up border patrols inside Kosovo to interdict fighters and supplies to the zone and to Macedonia, the alliance refuses to be drawn directly into fighting that could lead to NATO casualties.