[The Macedonian army blasted a village held by Albanian Freedom fighters June 22, 2001, tearing up a ragged 11-day truce. Read photo caption below]. 

OUTSIDE ARACINOVO, Macedonia (Reuters) - The Slav-dominated Macedonian army blasted a village held by Albanian Freedom fighters Friday and vowed to continue to attack, tearing up an 11-day truce in a risky bid for the upper hand in stalled peace talks.

Western powers, anxious to broker a deal before the conflict spirals into civil war, denounced the attack as ''complete folly'' in a strongly worded statement by NATO Secretary General George Robertson on behalf of the alliance's 19 members.

``There is no military solution to this crisis and over-reactions at this moment simply deepen already critical divisions,'' he said, demanding that the ``madness'' stop.

Plumes of smoke rose from the rooftops of Aracinovo hours after it was strafed by Mi-24 helicopter gunships in a dawn raid on positions that the Fighters had threatened to use to shell the Macedonian capital Skopje and its airport.

There was no sign of major troop movement and analysts doubted that the army could implement a promise by army spokesman Blagoja Markovski to recapture the most strategic settlement occupied so far by Albanian fighters in a four-month revolt for equal rights.

``I would be staggered if Aracinovo fell to the Macedonians in the immediate future,'' a Western defense official said. ''They do not have the men for that kind of operation.''

WHAT NEXT?

Friday's attack stuck to a well-worn strategy of long-range heavy bombardment. Tank shells slammed into terrain between the village on Skopje's fringes and the nearby Athens-Belgrade highway and two rounds of Katyusha rockets were unleashed.

The Fighters, who responded with heavy machine-gun fire and a few mortar rounds, showed no signs of giving up and could launch a counter offensive to distract the Macedonian army elsewhere.

``The ball is still with the Albanian Fighters,'' one envoy said. ``The big question is what (the Macedonian attack) will provoke.''

The army said it had no intention of calling off its attack.

``Our ground troops are on the outskirts of Aracinovo. ... The next thing is to clear the terrain,'' Markovski told a news conference. ``One thing is sure. It will not last only one day.''

The Albanian Fighters said they planned to battle on.

``It is a real fight,'' a commander codenamed Hoxha told Reuters by telephone. ``We broke them and they withdrew.''

Three civilians were killed, and one Freedom Fighter injured, Hoxha said, adding that his men had killed five policemen.

TALKS ON HOLD

The attack cast a shadow over attempts to hammer out a peace deal. Parties from across a widening ethnic divide did not meet Friday.

A government official said the action was intended to force Albanian politicians to drop demands blamed for blocking the cross-party talks, designed to persuade the Fighters to end their armed Resistance in return for greater Albanian rights.

Albanians account for about one-third of Macedonia's two million people.

``Without any advances on the ground, you cannot advance in the political talks,'' he told Reuters.
Solana, in Israel on a separate peace mission, said he was still optimistic about rescuing peace talks in Skopje before a Monday deadline he has set for ``substantial progress.''

But Albanian parties, who are demanding full-scale foreign mediation in what diplomats worry may be a ploy to secure a partition of the tiny Balkan state, are refusing to compromise.

Responding to calls for intervention, Robertson warned that any attempt to drag NATO into ``slicing up'' the country of two million along ethnic lines would be a ``blueprint for disaster.''

In neighboring Kosovo, a U.N. refugee agency spokeswoman said 1,450 Albanians had crossed from Macedonia on Thursday, bringing the total since February to more than 50,000.

All-out war is far from inevitable, but diplomats fear it may not take much to change that. ``The gloves aren't quite off yet, but you can forget about cease-fires,'' one envoy said.
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PHOTO CAPTION

The Macedonian army blasted a village held by Albanian Freedom fighters June 22, 2001, tearing up a ragged 11-day truce in a high-risk bid to get the upper hand in stalled peace talks. A Macedonian army tank maneuvers on the outskirts of the village Aracinovo near the capital Skopje June 22, 2001. Mi-24 helicopter gunships, usually armed with rockets and four-barrel 12.7mm machineguns, began swooping in on Aracinovo at dawn. (Ognen Teofilovski/Reuters)
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