OHRID, Macedonia (Islamweb & News Agencies) - Macedonia hovered between war and peace Thursday after an agreement meant to end an ethnic Albanian revolt for equal rights was reached amid widespread violence.
Western envoys, who had struggled to mediate a peace deal for 12 days, persuaded Macedonian and ethnic Albanian party leaders to initial the accord even as reports of heavy fighting came in from the western town of Tetovo.
The fighting followed an ethnic Albanian fighters' ambush that killed at least 10 soldiers -- the bloodiest single incident since the insurgency began in February-- and sparked fierce riots in the capital Skopje and the soldiers' hometown, Prilep. (Read map caption below)
The government warned it would strike back at the Albanians and a source in the office of President Boris Trajkovski said the army chief of staff would be fired over the ambush.
Riots in Skopje continued beyond midnight with about 300 people roaming around smashing shop windows and grabbing goods in the city center.
Others had left after police used tear gas. At least 20 shops were damaged by the time the crowds dispersed at around 1 a.m. There were no reports of arrests.
Protesters also burned down a mosque and smashed up shops in Prilep in the south, where a police source said a group of around 70 men had broken into a local army barracks and stolen semi-automatic rifles.
Witnesses reported the sound of detonations in the mainly ethnic Albanian town of Tetovo Wednesday night after a day of widespread fighting there between Albanian fighters, who had moved in from nearby hills, and the Slav-dominated security forces.
One ethnic Albanian was killed and two other people were wounded, the director of the local hospital said.
GOVERNMENT PLANS OFFENSIVE
Macedonia's Slav-dominated Security Council authorized ``the most energetic offensive measures'' to counter the threat to government forces after a late-night meeting in the southern resort of Ohrid, where the peace talks had taken place.
A Western source in Ohrid said the violence threatened months of work on the agreement, which was supposed to undercut the revolt for Albanian equal rights by granting the fighters what they say they want -- more rights for the ethnic Albanian minority.
Many Macedonians see any peace plan giving concessions to the minority is a reward for what they call aggression.
Question marks hang over whether the deal will be accepted by either Macedonian deputies in parliament or the fighters, who did not take part in the talks but are presumed to have been in contact with some of the politicians who did.
NATO has committed itself to sending a 3,500-strong force into Macedonia to collect weapons from the Albanians -- but only after the political deal has been signed, a cease-fire is in place and the fighters have agreed to disarm voluntarily.
HOPES FOR MONDAY SIGNING
European Union peace envoy Francois Leotard said the accord, initialed by the main party leaders from both sides of the former Yugoslav republic's ethnic divide, would formally be signed next Monday.
``I hope it's possible now to have peace on the ground and stabilization of the situation but I know that it's very complex,'' Leotard told Reuters.
The United States also struck a cautious note about the prospects for avoiding the fifth Balkan war in a decade.
``Simply put, we don't count our chickens before they hatch,'' State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told a news briefing in Washington.
The Albanian fighters fired rockets, mortar rounds and used automatic rifles in the attack on the convoy, setting several vehicles ablaze. Slav-dominated Macedonian forces responded with attack helicopters pounding Albanian positions in the area, officials said.
The incident came the day after Slav-dominated Macedonian security forces shot dead five ethnic Albanians in Skopje, saying they were members of the National Liberation Army.
The violence had looked likely to derail Western-sponsored peace talks in Ohrid at which Macedonian leaders agreed to allow more ethnic Albanians to join the police and to greater official use of the Albanian language.
The biggest Macedonian party, the VMRO, said it was freezing its participation in the talks because of the latest attack. But a Western source said there was no sign of the VMRO actually bolting.
MAP CAPTION:
Ethnic Albanian fighters killed 10 Macedonian Slav soldiers in an ambush August 8, 2001 and fighting broke out in a northwestern town in Macedonia as the Balkan nation veered toward war from hopes of peace. (Reuters Graphic)