Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski said Saturday he was considering widening his coalition to bring in more Albanians, after police pressed on with a counter-offensive to drive out Albanian rebels attacking Tetovo from hills around the northwestern town overnight.
In Skopje, the parliament resumed a closed-door emergency session to discuss the crisis which has threatened to turn the multi-ethnic state into another Bosnia.
NATO was drawn directly into the conflict when German troops housed in Macedonian barracks on Friday came under fire from the rebels.
Half the contingent of 1,000 troops were later withdrawn from the base, just 15 kilometers (nine miles) from the border of the NATO-patrolled Yugoslav province of Kosovo.
The sound of mortar fire echoed across the town in the early hours of Saturday as special police tried to dislodge the ethnic Albanian guerrillas, who last week left their mountain bases on the Kosovo border and brought their struggle to a major town.
The town fell quiet later in the morning and no more injured had been admitted to Tetovo hospital since late Friday, clinic director Raim Taci said.
But in an alarming sign that the conflict could engulf the whole of the north, a police station on the edge of Kumanovo, just 20 kilometers (12 miles) northeast of the capital Skopje, was raked overnight with automatic rifle fire, a police official said.
Police fired back and a brief gun battle ensued, said the official.
The attack came just a day after a commander of the ethnic Albanian rebel National Liberation Army (UCK) threatened to bring the fight to the whole country, and specifically mentioned Kumanovo.
Many Macedonians have started panic-buying of food and fuel in anticipation of a drawn-out emergency, while at least 2,000 people have fled Tetovo.
Most of the streets in the town of 200,000 people, the majority of them Albanians, have been deserted since the fighting began on Wednesday, and those who venture out hurry on their way.
Four mortar rounds smacked into the heart of the large town Friday, and at least 25 people have been injured, with one Albanian civilian shot dead by sniper fire.
In Skopje, Georgievski said he was thinking about broadening his centre-right coalition formed in 1998, to bring in opposition parties including the ethnic Albanian Party for Democratic Prosperity (PDP) of Imer Imeri.
He called on opposition parties to "contribute to government efforts to re-establish peace in the country."
The parliament was meeting for a second day to consider its response to the emergency.
Skopje has said it is open to reform to allow the one-third Albanian minority to gain more rights, but it has vowed to wipe out the "terrorism" which it says is being engineered by former Kosovo rebels who fought Belgrade for independence from 1998-99.
The rebels say they fighting to end anti-Albanian discrimination but are suspected of trying to carve up the country.
The government has decided to allow the army to lend their firepower to police efforts to stamp out the insurrection, but NATO has warned against a heavy-handed response that could radicalise moderate Albanians.
NATO chief George Robertson said the alliance would not allow "a small number of extremists" to destabilise Macedonia but added that NATO had no military mandate to move into Macedonia and did not believe Skopje wanted it to do so.
Macedonian Foreign Minister Srdjan Kerim is due to meet Robertson in Brussels on Monday to discuss the conflict.
NATO has already intensified patrols along Kosovo's border with Macedonia to prevent Albanian gunmen from using the UN-run Yugoslav province as a rear base.
UN rights envoy for the Balkans, Jiri Dienstbier, said Friday NATO must block the rebels.
"They failed to prevent the ethnic cleansing of non-Albanians (in Kosovo) and to disarm the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which has led to the catastrophic situation in Kosovo, southern Serbia and Macedonia," he said.
The EU high representative for foreign policy and defense, Javier Solana, is also due in Skopje on Monday -- TETOVO, Macedonia (AFP)
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
