New US envoy Mr James Pardew held crisis talks with Macedonian political leaders today even as ethnic Albanian guerrillas said they planned to advance after heavy fighting shattered a weekend lull.
The army said it fired artillery and sent out helicopter gunships yesterdayevening following the death of a soldier in an ethnic Albanian guerrilla assault on army positions near the western town of Tetovo, just a half-hour drive from the capital, Skopje.
Army spokesman Mr Blagoja Markovski said three soldiers and two Macedonian civilians had also been hurt near the rebel-held village of Radusa, northwest of Skopje, and another village to the northeast in the fighting, which died down at midnight.
A spokesman for the National Liberation Army (NLA) guerrillas said they had moved forward after repeated government shelling over the past few days.
Both sides said later a guerrilla had been killed and Albanian sources said an Albanian woman had been injured.
The violence erupted just hours after Mr Pardew arrived today, urging the country's multi-ethnic leadership to take responsibility for ending a four-month-old Albanian rebellion before it turns into civil war.
NATO has given final approval to a plan to send up to 3,000 peacekeeping troops to Macedonia to collect and destroy the weapons of ethnic Albanian rebels. The force would be deployed only after a lasting ceasefire had been declared and a political agreement reached.
Some 100,OOO mostly ethnic Albanian villagers have been displaced since the conflict erupted. Over 70,000 have gone to live with Albanian families in neighbouring Kosovo.