Rebels Forced From Sites, Macedonia Says

Government troops cautiously moved into a rebel stronghold Friday after pounding it with artillery and rockets, then flushed rebels out of other villages, an army spokesman said.

Officials denied reports that dozens of civilians had been killed in the fighting but said ethnic Albanian insurgents suffered heavy casualties.

The move on Vaksince and other villages was part of a government offensive unleashed Thursday to push the rebels out of much of Macedonia’s highland near the border with Kosovo.

Rebels were forced out of the areas of Vaksince, Rudnicka Kolonija, Lojane and Tabanovce, which Macedonian forces have secured, said army spokesman Col. Blagoja Markovski. He said about 3,000 villagers were evacuated from the Vaksince area during the day.

The rebels say they are fighting for more rights for ethnic Albanians, who make up at least a quarter of Macedonia’s 2 million people. The government accuses them of trying to grab land and unite it with Kosovo, a province of Serbia in neighboring Yugoslavia that is dominated by ethnic Albanians. Fighting began in February.

At Vaksince, puffs of smoke from artillery shells rose from the town’s center and heavy machine-gun fire punctuated the boom of the cannons as troops prepared to move in. The village also was raked by rocket fire from two helicopter gunships.

By noon, the slender tower of the town’s mosque had toppled and small-arms fire could be heard from neighboring villages.

Commenting on unconfirmed reports of up to 60 civilians killed, a police official speaking on condition of anonymity confirmed the likelihood of dozens of deaths. But he denied that they were innocent victims, calling them insurgents dressed as civilians.

Markovski also denied that civilians were killed. “There are plenty of casualties among the terrorists--I don’t know how many,” he said.

Up to 2,000 refugees crossed into Serbia at Miratovac, U.N. refugee agency officials said in Geneva.