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Macedonian Helicopters Target Rebel Positions
TETOVO, Macedonia, March 24 (News Agencies) - Two Macedonian helicopter gunships attacked suspected rebel positions in the hills above the northwestern town of Tetovo Saturday, an AFP reporter at the scene said.
The helicopters fired a volley of rockets onto a ridge overlooking the town where ethnic Albanian rebels and government forces have been locked in an 11-day stand-off.
In Skopje, defense ministry spokesman Georgi Trendafilov could give no details over the attack.
However, he insisted that the Macedonian units had noted movements by the rebels south from Tetovo and in the neighboring Kosovo province.
Following the attack the choppers veered off and flew away, leaving columns of smoke rising from the ridgeline above Macedonia's second largest city.
While the helicopters used in the attack were older Soviet-designed heavy-lift aircraft, Ukraine announced Friday that it was to supply Macedonia with Mi-8T attack helicopters.
Weighing in at 13 tons and with a range of 300 miles (475 kilometers), the aircraft can be used from transport or equipped with cannon and rocket launchers to act as a highly mobile firing platform.
They are considered a hugely significant addition to Macedonia's poorly armed military, and their use is a major escalation in the republic's campaign against the rebels.
Since the National Liberation Army (NLA) seized the heights above Tetovo on March 13th, government units have been unable to dislodge them from their dug-in position despite sporadic artillery barrages.
A Ukraine defense ministry spokesman said Friday that two Mi-8 helicopters had already been delivered to Skopje and that two more had also been sold and were due to be sent in the near future.
Earlier Saturday, four Macedonian civilians were injured as fighting raged between the rebels and the government forces on the outskirts of Tetovo.
For more than three hours from midday (1100 GMT), the town was rocked by the sound of mortar and artillery shells landing in the rebel-held hills to the north, while police Special Forces units strafed a strategic ridge with machine-gun fire.
Four Macedonian civilians were injured in an explosion, hospital director Rahim Thaci told reporters. Witnesses said the group was hurt when a rebel mortar bomb hit their home in the Koltuk area of the town.
"Their lives are no longer in danger after treatment," Thaci said, adding that the attack brought to 47 the total number of people injured in the town since the fighting began on March 13th, including 15 civilians.
In Skopje, the interior ministry spokesman Stevo Pendarovski said, "mortar fire was opened on a part of the village of Koltuk."
He added: "It was unclear whether the civilian house was a target or a nearby police post."
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