STOP NATO: �NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------- ListBot Sponsor -------------------------- Start Your Own FREE Email List at http://www.listbot.com/links/joinlb ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Thursday July 19, 7:13 PM Ethnic Albanian rebels massing across north and west Macedonia: Skopje SKOPJE, July 19 (AFP) - Ethnic Albanian guerrillas are regrouping across the north and west of Macedonia, the defence ministry said Thursday as talks to find a way out of the six-month crisis faltered. Shooting erupted in several northern areas as guerrillas of the National Liberation Army (NLA) were spotted mustering as far afield as Struga, near the southwestern border with Albanian, and Tanusevci, a former stronghold on the northern border with Kosovo, a ministry statement said. The NLA opened rifle fire on police positions in villages around the northwestern town of Tetovo late Wednesday and early Thursday, and uniformed fighters were spotted in the town itself, the ministry said. No injuries were reported. Firing targeted police at a checkpoint near the stadium in the mainly Albanian town, with shots coming from Drenovec on the edge of Tetovo and a number of other Albanian villages. The ministry said that men in civilian clothes had been spotted hauling covered crates into mosques in what appeared to be preparation for renewed fighting. Eight fighters also attacked a police checkpoint at a petrol station near the northern town of Kumanovo, close to villages held by the rebels in the foothills of the Black Mountains between Kumanovo and Skopje. They were driven off without any casualties, the ministry said. For the first time a group of 15 rebels were sighted near the Matka dam on the southwestern fringes of Skopje, where the army has heavily reinforced its garrison in recent weeks. Other guerrillas were seen moving for the first time near Radusce, 10 kilometres (six miles) west of Skopje, where the capital's water supply is stored in reservoirs. And for the first time a group of fighters was seen near Struga, a town just 10 kilometres from the Albania on the shores of Lake Ohrid, the ministry said. Macedonian troops also opened fire on a group of rebels trying to enter the country from Kosovo. They were replused after a brief firefight near the village of Tanusevci, where the rebellion first erupted in February. The widespread regrouping came after two bomb blasts in the capital left one woman injured, while the governmental coordinating committee overseeing military aspects of a fragile ceasefire confirmed that three Macedonian men had been abducted Wednesday by a group of 11 armed NLA fighters near Tetovo. Political talks among Macedonian Slav and ethnic Albanian political leaders foundered late Wedenesday, with both sides saying they were drawing the line on further concessions. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/ ______________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
