[ALBSA-Info] Gunfire, shelling hits Macedonia-Kosovo border area

[Gazhebo at aol.com]

Gunfire, shelling hits Macedonia-Kosovo border area

By Shaban Buza

DEBELDE, Yugoslavia, March 5 (Reuters) - Macedonian security forces exchanged 
fire with ethnic Albanian guerrillas occupying a village on the border with 
Kosovo on Monday after army chiefs consulted overnight with NATO on how to 
flush out the gunmen. 

A sporadic thump of shelling could be heard coming from the vicinity of the 
remote mountain hamlet, Tanusevci, which is overlooked by Macedonian security 
forces, after the two sides traded machinegun and small-arms fire. 

Tanusevci itself was not visible from the nearby Kosovo village of Debelde, 
where U.S. peacekeeping soldiers set up a monitoring point after a firefight 
between the shadowy gunmen and Macedonian forces near Tanusevci a week ago. 

But about a dozen armed men presumed to be ethnic Albanians could be seen 
taking up positions on a rock near Tanusevci. The fighters later told 
journalists to leave the centre of Debelde. 

The Macedonian government had no immediate comment. It had said earlier that 
any action taken against the guerrillas would be coordinated with the 
NATO-led KFOR peace force in Kosovo and aim only to safeguard Macedonia's 
territorial integrity. 

Five U.S. armoured combat vehicles, two armoured medical vehicles and nine 
all-terrain Humvee jeeps arrived in Debelde on Monday morning, and two U.S. 
Apache helicopters were flying overhead observing the area. 

Asked what was happening, one KFOR soldier told reporters: "We'll tell you at 
three o'clock (1300 GMT)." 

A group of KFOR soldiers had earlier set off towards Tanusevci. When they 
returned, they said they had been talking to villagers, but did not make 
clear whether they had reached Tanusevci or spoken to the gunmen. 

CIVILIANS FLEE CLASHES 

Most of the civilians from Tanusevci are believed to have fled after shooting 
broke out there on Monday. 

Macedonian generals held talks overnight with officers of KFOR to plan how to 
clear out the gunmen from Tanusevci after three Macedonian soldiers were 
killed there on Sunday. 

NATO is worried that the gunmen, emboldened by the success of the armed 
struggle in Kosovo, might extend it into Macedonia, a fragile ex-Yugoslav 
republic that escaped recent Balkan wars. 

Macedonia, a Slav-dominated country with a large ethnic Albanian minority, 
appealed for NATO's help over the emergence of the guerrillas about two weeks 
ago, saying they threatened its fragile demographic balance. 

KFOR has a back-up mission in Macedonia but says its mandate is only to 
provide logistical help to the peacekeepers who replaced Serbian security 
forces in Kosovo after 11 weeks of NATO air strikes against Yugoslavia in 
1999 conducted to stop Belgrade's repression of the province's Albanian 
majority. 

The gunmen have not identified themselves or issued any demands. Ethnic 
Albanian politicians in Macedonia, where five government ministers are 
Albanian, say the clashes on the border threaten their hard-won political 
gains and the improvements achieved in their uneasy relations with the Slav 
majority. 

Before Monday's clashes broke out, the spokesman for the Macedonian Defence 
Ministry said Macedonian forces would taken only defensive action. 

"We are in our positions, ready to defend the lives of our soldiers and the 
integrity of our country. The army is prepared to take defensive action," 
Georgi Trendafilov said by telephone. 

On Sunday, Macedonia asked for an urgent meeting of the U.N. Security Council 
to approve a five-km (three-mile) buffer zone inside Kosovo on the border 
with Macedonia in which KFOR would strictly control any movement of people 
and supplies.