A heavy exchange of fire broke out around the northwestern Macedonian town of Tetovo tonight, just as a convoy of rebels left a village elsewhere in the country under a Western-brokered ceasefire and evacuation deal.
"They are fighting around Tetovo, and the security forces are firing towards the hills from their checkpoints and other positions in the town", Tetovo Mayor Mr Murtezan Ismaili told Reuters by telephone.
Tetovo is the unofficial capital of Macedonia's ethnic Albanian majority. Government forces are battling ethnic Albanian rebels in the Balkan country.
A police official confirmed fighting had broken out. "Four of our policemen have been hurt up in the mountains", he said."Several of our checkpoints are under attack right now."
The fire was coming from the direction of the village of Shipkovica, high in the Sar mountains above Tetovo and from the area of Drenica, just above the Tetovo sports stadium, the state MIA news agency said.
There was no immediate word on how the violence had started.
It began as a first convoy of buses moved out of the strategic village of Aracinovo, northeast of the capital, carrying ethnic Albanian rebels who had agreed to withdraw in return for an end to a three-day army offensive on the village.
Fighters of the ethnic Albanian National Liberation Army fought security forces around Tetovo in March before withdrawing and striking again in the northeast in early May.