Ethnic Albanian guerrillas today attacked police checkpoints in two villages near the northwest Macedonian town of Tetovo, at the same time as the army battled for control of villages near the city of Kumanovo, interior ministry spokesman Stevo Pendarovski said.
"The terrorists started firing on our checkpoints at Sipkovice and Brodec at 5.15 p.m. (4.15 p.m. Irish time)," Mr Pendarovksi said, referring to ethnic Albanian guerrillas of the selfproclaimed National Liberation Army.
Earlier today, EU foreign ministers have urged Macedonia not to declare a state of war in response to attacks by ethnic Albanian rebels and repeated an offer of future EU membership.
Macedonia's leaders said yesterday they would start consultations with political parties on whether to declare a state of war and stepped up shelling on rebel positions in the northeast of the former Yugoslav republic.
"A declaration of war is not a step the EU would like to see at this time," Swedish Foreign Ministry State Secretary Hans Dahlgren told a news conference in the small town of Nykoping, where European Union ministers are meeting over the weekend.
Mr Dahlgren said the ministers discussed long-term prospects for the Balkans and noted the attraction of future membership of the EU held for all Balkan countries.
"The possibility for the European Union to use this... long-term goal for the countries of the region in a concerted effort to find more stability and peace...is something that was clearly recognised by the ministers," he said.
He said EU foreign policy chief Mr Javier Solana, Swedish Foreign Minister Ms Anna Lindh and External Relations Commissioner Mr Chris Patten would travel to Macedonia and Albania on this evening in an effort to broker stability.
According to the Macedonian constitution a state of war, giving broader rights to the security forces, must be approved by a two-thirds parliamentary majority and Dahlgren said it was unlikely that such a majority could be mustered.
As fighting raged, Macedonia's leaders discussed on Saturday how to increase the rights and the role of the Albanian minority which accounts for one third of the population. The talks are seen as the only alternative to civil war.
Government security troops have been shelling rebel positions in the northeast of the former Yugoslav republic since Thursday 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.
Over the weekend, 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 on Sunday 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 Thursday. Guerrillas answered with machinegun fire.
"Civilians are the main problem, if there were no civilians, we would have entered the villages long ago," an Interior Ministry source said.
AFP