Hunkering close to armored vehicles for cover, government troops exchanged fire with ethnic Albanian insurgents in the foothills above Tetovo yesterday as an offensive to push the rebels away from Macedonia's second-largest city gained ground.
In the closest fighting yet since the start of the conflict six weeks ago, the two sides engaged each other near Gajre, in the hills just northwest of Tetovo.
By early afternoon, led by seven armored personnel carriers and two tanks, Macedonian troops had moved into Gajre, breaking through a rebel roadblock and apparently forcing the guerrillas to pull back.
Houses and cars were burning in the village, as troops blasted suspected rebels hideouts. Two helicopters strafed the hillsides.
After taking the village, the troops regrouped and set up positions overlooking Llavce, another rebel-held village just north of Gajre.
The government advance was preceded by an early-morning mortar barrage meant to soften up the insurgents before the army's advance into the foothills. Amid the thud of exploding rounds, a convoy of armored personnel carriers rumbled down the center of downtown Tetovo just before 6am turning toward Gajre, 4km outside the center of Tetovo.
Three Soviet-era T-55 tanks also later moved through the downtown area, kicking up clouds of dust and smoke as they drove through the city's Slavic neighborhoods. People in those areas gathered on street corners and cheered as the tracks clattered down the cobblestone streets.
As they approached Gajre, the personnel carriers stopped and about 200 soldiers disembarked and fanned out behind them. Other vehicles pulled six 155mm cannons up the hill. Two government helicopters hovered overhead.
The troops looked nervous but determined. "We are fighting for Macedonia," said one soldier who refused to give his name. "For everybody here."
But ethnic Albanian residents expressed outrage at the army attack, asserting that the assault was targeting innocent civilians instead of insurgent positions.
"They think that every house is a bunker," said Nuri Junozic, 46.
Hanife Zeciri, 50, said she would not leave, no matter what the army did.
"From my house no one takes me away," she said.
Although ethnic relations with the majority Slavs have been relatively trouble-free, substantial numbers of the ethnic Albanian minority feel they are being treated as second-class citizens. The struggle appears to have radicalized a large segment of Macedonian Albanians.
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