Heavy fighting on eve of Solana visit

Macedonian security forces have pushed towards two ethnic Albanian rebel strongholds, setting several houses on fire and touching off explosions that rocked the hills along the rugged border with Kosovo.

The attacks against the villages of Slupcane and Matejce hindered efforts by international aid groups to help thousands of civilians trapped in the fighting and came just one day before a key European official was to travel to Macedonia in an effort to end the crisis.

European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana will try to negotiate a way out of the government deadlock that occurred after two ethnic Albanian politicians made a deal with the rebels, angering their Slavic partners in the leadership.

The deal reportedly provided that the rebels would agree to stop fighting in exchange for amnesty guarantees and the power to veto political decisions on ethnic Albanian rights.

Revelations of a deal pushed Macedonia’s leadership into turmoil, just weeks after ethnic Albanian and Slavic politicians forged a national unity government and raised hopes that further violence might be avoided.

The fighting, meanwhile, dashed hopes of helping the civilians who have been cowering in basements for three weeks.

Macedonian press and government sources reported that The International Committee of the Red Cross was trying to negotiate an evacuation of civilians from the besieged villages, but the ICRC refused to comment.

It was not immediately clear how many people were still trapped in the rebel-held villages. Up to 3,000 have crossed into Serbia, Yugoslavia’s larger republic in the past weeks, while an army spokesman said that more then 1,300 left the area in the past 24 hours. Thousands more have crossed into Kosovo since the crisis began earlier this month.

The US ambassador in Macedonia, Mike Einik, met ethnic Albanian politicians on Sunday to discuss ways out of the crisis.

Siding with the Macedonian government which says no deals can be made with the ‘‘terrorists’’, international officials have urged the two key ethnic Albanian leaders to renounce their deal with the rebels.

The rebels say they are fighting for greater rights for Macedonia’s minority ethnic Albanians. The government contends they are bent on seizing territory and carving out an ethnic Albanian mini-state.

After talks with Einik, one of the ethnic Albanian leaders, Imer Imeri, spoke of a new US-European initiative to end the crisis.

‘‘The important thing is that the killing stops and that the civilians are saved,’’ Imeri said. He added that the agreement he signed with the militants ‘‘had some positive connotations.’’

Einik also met Macedonian government officials earlier in the day, a source close to the leadership said.

The United States and its allies fear that a large-scale war in Macedonia could spill to other countries in the Balkans.