By Oleg Popov
NEAR VAKCINCE, Macedonia (Reuters) - Macedonian forces on Friday went into a second day of offensive against ethnic Albanian rebels in mountains northeast of the capital Skopje.
Reuters reporters some 1.5 miles from the village of Vakcince saw heavy artillery, mortars and heavy machinegun fire hitting the hamlet which was billowing thick smoke into the clear morning sky.
There appeared to be machinegun response from the rebels.
Two other villages southwest of Vakcince, Lipkovo and Slupcane, were also hit by the shelling.
Vakcince appeared to be surrounded by the Macedonian security forces, furious over the killings of two army servicemen on Thursday.
A third soldier had been seized by the guerrillas when they ambushed an army patrol returning from duty on the border between Macedonia, Kosovo and southern Serbia.
Before the shelling resumed, a convoy carrying between 150 to 200 special police troops entered the neighboring town of Kumanovo, accompanied by an armored personnel carrier.
On Thursday, after appealing to the population to leave the mountainous area where the rebels are believed to be hiding, Macedonian forces unleashed helicopter gunships and artillery fire on Vakcince and areas around it.
World Increasingly Worried
Macedonia's parliament was due to hold an extraordinary session later on Friday to discuss the crisis.
The latest violence marked a further deterioration of the security situation in Macedonia, where ethnic Albanian guerrillas launched an insurgency earlier this year which has prompted international fears of another Balkan war.
''I think there must be great concern that this will descend into a spiral of violence and potentially into civil war,'' NATO Secretary-General George Robertson told Reuters Television on Thursday.
''The international community must do everything to avoid that happening.''
European Union sources said that EU foreign and security policy chief Javier Solana would visit Macedonia on Sunday after an informal meeting of EU foreign ministers in Sweden.
''The European Union strongly condemns the renewed acts of violence by ethnic Albanian extremists...'' the EU said in a statement.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher conveyed the same message.
The rebels say they are fighting for equal rights for the ethnic Albanian minority, who make up around one third of Macedonia's population of two million people, but their actions have been strongly condemned by Western powers.
The violence came just hours after President Bush met Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski in Washington and gave strong backing to the government's strategy of trying to address ethnic Albanian grievances through political dialogue.
Macedonia was the only republic in the old Yugoslavia to break away without bloodshed and the West has hailed its multi-ethnic government as a model for the region.
But its fragile ethnic balance has come under increasing pressure since the ethnic Albanian insurgency began.
The official death toll now stands at 13 soldiers, seven policemen and three civilians. The rebels say 12 of their fighters have been killed.
After clashes between the rebels and state security forces in February and March, violence flared again late last month when eight Macedonian soldiers were killed in an attack.