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Macedonian Army Launches Attack On Albanian Rebels
KUMANOVO, Macedonia, May 5 (News Agencies) - The Macedonian army on Saturday launched a fresh artillery attack on villages near the northern city of Kumanovo to flush out ethnic Albanian fighters, in renewed fighting that has revived fears of another Balkans conflict.
Heavy firing broke the silence around the villages of Vaksince and Slupcane at 12:45 pm (1045 GMT), with several shells crashing into houses in and around Slupcane each minute.
An armored column of around 20 vehicles, including tanks, was later seen heading toward Slupcane.
The government had earlier issued a third deadline in as many days of fighting for villagers to leave, warning them to quit their homes by 11:00 am.
The government says the rebels are holding more than 3,500 villagers hostage as a human shield, but the gunmen say the residents have stayed in the combat zone of their own accord.
"We have been limited in our actions all the time because we were acting only selectively," said army spokesman Blagoja Markovski, who said Skopje was heeding international calls to do its best to avoid civilian casualties.
Western powers fear a high civilian toll could harden ethnic Albanian moderates who have so far refused to side with the rebels' armed campaign.
Markovski said the army had suffered no casualties but had no information on possible losses among Albanian Muslim rebels.
The rebels said they were holding one solider and two Macedonian "paramilitaries".
Government officials also said there were around 40 Kurds fighting in the rebel ranks. It said the NLA was demanding that Macedonian Albanian families provide one man each to fight for the Albanian cause, and that richer families were hiring the immigrants as proxies for their sons.
The fighting started Thursday when the ethnic Albanian National Liberation Army killed two soldiers and seized several villages.
Saturday's firing focused on Slupcane, which is just 20 kilometers (12 miles) north of the capital Skopje.
Shells crashed into the center of the village and thick yellow smoke quickly spread from four impact points in the village.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) had earlier visited the village to deliver medical supplies.
The ICRC said Friday two villagers had been killed in the fighting.
The U.N. refugee agency UNHCR in Kosovo said several hundred ethnic Albanian villagers had fled the region into the U.N.-run province to join thousands still sheltering there are the last bout of fighting in March.
Government spokesman Antonio Milososki said around 150 villagers had responded to the evacuation order, but said the gunmen were demanding that residents give them valuables in exchange for permission to leave.
The European Union has called on the NLA "to release the hostages and withdraw immediately."
The sudden re-emergence of the rebels to seize a chunk of Macedonian territory close to the Serbian border has exploded government claims in late March it had broken the rebels as an organized force.
Instead they appear to have taken the time to regroup and plan their next offensive.
The latest fighting is just a few kilometers across the border from Serbia's Presevo Valley, where a similar group, thought to be linked to the NLA, is fighting for self-rule.
Troubled flared again as Macedonia's Slav majority was still reeling from the killing of eight security officers last weekend near Tetovo.
A funeral for four of the policemen in Bitola in the south sparked two nights of anti-Albanian rioting, further escalating ethnic tensions in the already strained country.
Nighttime curfews are in place in the three major cities Tetovo, Bitola and Kumanovo.
The resurgence of violence has also burdened efforts to press ahead with a political dialogue on improving the lot of ethnic Albanians, which the international community has urged Skopje to continue as a means of defusing the crisis.
The government has promised the talks with ethnic Albanian political leaders will turn up concrete results by June, but minority representatives accuse Skopje of stalling.
NATO chief George Robertson and EU security and foreign policy high representative Javier Solana are to visit Macedonia Monday.
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