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Macedonian Army Says Muslim Albanian Rebels Broken
KALE, Macedonia, March 27 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - A government offensive against Muslim Albanian fighters in the hills above Tetovo has destroyed the rebels as an organized force, a Macedonian defense ministry spokesman said Tuesday.
"They don't exist anymore. We have checked all the area to the border in the north [with Kosovo]," Georgi Trendafilov told reporters in the Ottoman fort of Kale on a peak immediately overlooking Tetovo, which was used as a firing position by rebel snipers.
But an interior ministry spokesman, Stevo Pendarovski, was more cautious saying that special police units had not yet entered the two villages of Sipkovica and Vejce to the north of Kale in a valley leading up towards the Kosovo border.
"The villages are surrounded, we are at the very edge of them and we do not think there are any rebels. It should be over in a couple of hours. We are advancing carefully, there may be extremists hiding in some of the houses," he told AFP, speaking by telephone from Skopje.
Security forces captured Kale fort, which has been repeatedly battered by government mortars, during an offensive launched on Sunday. On Tuesday reporters invited by the defense ministry found it occupied by special police.
From Kale, troops can see the villages of Lavce and Selce, which Trendafilov said were under government control.
"Soldiers don't go into the villages, only police," he said, explaining that checkpoints would be set up by police in or near the villages. An AFP reporter who visited Selce Monday found it abandoned by the rebels and all but a tiny handful of its 3,000-strong civilian population. There was no sign of the police, but mortar shells had damaged several houses.
A rebel commander calling himself "Indian" had earlier told AFP by telephone that his men were still active in another area much further east, in the area of Lipkovo, and were ready to fight on.
"We are in our positions, and we are waiting. We are ready to defend ourselves," he said, "Today, it's a bit quieter, but just because the war has stopped for a day doesn't mean it's over."
On the route up to Kale along a steep escarpment that was exposed to government fire throughout the 12-day standoff ahead of Sunday's offensive, houses have been peppered with machine-gun fire and ripped apart by shells.
Isolated rebel firing positions scattered with empty cartridge cases were also visible. But the small group of snipers, who according to officials, did not kill a single policeman or soldier in the whole battle, appear to have been outgunned.
The grounds of the fort in which, according to Trendafilov, 15 of the fighters would be stationed at any one time, were scarred by dozens of mortar shells. But the government has not been able to provide any evidence of rebel casualties, and it appears the positions in the vaulted medieval galleries were abandoned rather than overrun.
The government of Macedonia has moved slowly to meet demands of the Albanian minority. Observers say that the government needs to ensure full social, political and economic inclusion for the Albanian minority whose numbers are being swelled by the tide of refugees from Kosovo.
The some 140,000 Kosovo Albanians may now stay permanently owing to family connections in Macedonia. The release of jailed Albanian dissidents in February 1999 and the granting of an Albanian university later in the year have gone some way to meeting minority demands, but there is still some pressure for Albanian to become the second official language.
Combined, these demands may have contributed to the recent flare of violence. Two-thirds of the population are Macedonian, and roughly two-fifths Albanian. The exact size of the Albanian minority of the country's 2.2 million people is disputed between official Macedonian government figures and Albanian community numbers. The official religion is Macedonian Orthodox Christianity, with Islam and Catholicism are practiced openly.
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