Fierce fighting raged throughout yesterday between Macedonian troops and ethnic Albanian rebels after government forces launched a major assault against guerrilla bases in the hills above the northern city of Tetovo, unofficial capital of the country's Albanian minority.
More than 200 government troops, sheltering behind tanks and armoured personnel carriers, took part in the most serious and concerted attack on the guerrilla positions since the conflict began six weeks ago. They were met with fierce resistance from members of the pro-Albanian National Liberation Army as they moved forward.
By mid-afternoon eyewitnesses said Macedonian forces had taken the village of Gajre, facing the main NLA rebel base across the valley at Selce. Trees felled across the road failed to prevent government tanks from entering the village, firing as they advanced.
House-to-house fighting was reported as the NLA rebels gradually withdrew into the woods on the outskirts of the village. Many houses were on fire as villagers took what refuge they could from the fighting. The director of the Tetovo hospital said one policeman and four civilians had suffered bullet wounds.
All the wounded civilians were members of Macedonia's Albanian minority, which makes up between one-third and a quarter and one-third of the country's two million population.
Macedonian forces began launching mortar attacks on NLA positions at Selce. The government said the assault would last two days: it was preceded by an artillery bombardment which began at dawn.
"Actions undertaken until now only succeeded in containing the terrorists, but we now want to retake the territory," the Macedonian Interior Ministry spokesman, Mr Stevo Pendarovski, said. "We are right now in the real war," he told the BBC.
Helicopter gunships were also used in the assault. On Saturday, two MI-24 helicopters delivered by Ukraine a day earlier were reported to have fired rockets into suspected rebel positions in the hills around Tetovo, Macedonia's second city. The NLA is thought to have between 300 and 700 activists in the nearby villages and mountains where there is an estimated 20,000 civilian population.