Macedonia on brink of civil war as battles rage

Macedonia's army has pounded an ethnic Albanian village with helicopter gunships after at least seven soldiers were killed by land mines.

Macedonia's feuding factions warned of all-out civil war in the Balkans nation as fighting raged close to the capital, Skopje.

The seven Macedonian soldiers were killed when two mines exploded as a convoy of trucks drove over them about six miles from the capital.

The Defence Ministry blamed ethnic Albanian terrorists for planting the mines. It said the rebels fired at the convoy after the mines exploded, but caused no further injuries.

Eleven rebels were killed as they attacked a police checkpoint 30 miles southwest of Skopje. A source said 12 Macedonian police reservists were later abducted by the rebels in Gostivar, a predominantly ethnic Albanian town.

Fighting between ethnic Albanian rebels and government forces erupted around Ljuboten soon after the mine explosions. Residents of the ethnic Albanian village said at least one house was levelled and government troops had sealed off the town.

A villager said government forces were using two helicopter gunships to shell the village and that hundreds of residents were hiding in basements. Heavy detonations of mortar and artillery fire could be heard in Skopje.

Government forces and ethnic Albanian rebels also traded gunfire on the outskirts of Tetovo, Macedonia's second city.

The fighting threatened to undermine the accord tentatively reached on Wednesday. The deal aims to end an insurgency that began in February, when the rebels took up arms, saying they were fighting for greater rights for minority ethnic Albanians, who make up a third of Macedonia's population of two million.

In a dramatically worded letter to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Nato chief Lord Robertson and EU envoy Javier Solana, Macedonia's foreign minister, Ilinka Mitreva, appealed for international help at "this most dramatic moment" for the country.