3.00 pm
SKOPJE - Macedonia's leaders, facing an insurgence by ethnic Albanian rebels, are to start consultations on whether to declare a state of war, its Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski announced.
Government security troops have been shelling rebel positions in the northeast of the former Yugoslav republic since Friday after the rebels killed 10 servicemen in a week.
But they so far have failed to dislodge the guerrillas from positions in several villages despite a barrage of artillery fire and occasional helicopter attacks.
The battle has revived fears of widening conflict that major powers hoped had been stifled last month when a government offensive drove back guerrilla forces who had occupied the hills above the western town of Tetovo.
"We have discussed this issue very seriously but first we have to consult other political parties before taking a decision," Georgievski said today.
Georgievski, who is also acting defense minister and leader of the main Slav Macedonian party in the government coalition which also includes an ethnic Albanian party, spoke after a meeting with President Boris Trajkovski and security officials.
Asked when such a decision could be taken, the premier said: "There is no deadline, it could be Tuesday or Wednesday."
According to the constitution a state of war, which gives wider rights to the security forces, must be approved by a two-thirds parliamentary majority.
"We are thinking about this not because the army and the police are not able to withstand the attacks (by the rebels) but to give them more room for maneuver," he said before the meeting.
Georgievski warned that new "provocations" by the rebels were expected overnight or tomorrow and again said the insurgence was exported from neighboring Albanian-majority Kosovo.
"It is obvious that we are facing a well-organized paramilitary terrorist force. All the information we have shows that these terrorist forces are coming from Kosovo, so there is no doubt it is an aggression from there."
Georgievski singled out the Kosovo Protection Corps, a civilian force which includes many former members of the now disbanded Kosovo Liberation Army which had fought Serb forces.
The corps, he said, was giving shelter to the fighters and then was sending them to southern Serbia and to Macedonia.
Army tanks and artillery ringed a cluster of rebel-held villages just west of the main Greece-to-Hungary highway, near the border with Yugoslavia, and were poised to resume shelling for a fourth day in a bid to dislodge the gunmen.
Tanks fired on houses, setting some aflame, in the villages of Vakcince and Slupcane, where the fighting has concentrated since Friday. Guerrillas answered with machinegun fire.
No troops were seen to enter the villages.
"Civilians are the main problem, if there were no civilians, we would have entered the villages long ago," an Interior Ministry source said.
- REUTERS
Herald Online feature: Yugoslavia
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
Serbian Ministry of Information
Serbian Radio - Free B92
Otpor: Serbian Student Resistance Movement
Macedonian Defence Ministry
Albanians in Macedonia Crisis Centre
Kosovo information page
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