TETOVO, Macedonia — Macedonian forces dug in overnight after piercing rebel lines and retaking ground held by ethnic Albanian insurgents and vowed that their offensive would continue until the rebels were driven out.
The former Yugoslav republic's ragtag infantry punched through rebel positions in a day of fierce battle Sunday that raged in the hills just outside Tetovo, Macedonia's second-largest city, spraying houses with bullets and forcing the guerrillas to pull back.
In the most intense fighting in six weeks of conflict with the rebels, the army broke through a roadblock and moved into the ethnic Albanian village of Gajre, 2 1/2 miles northwest of Tetovo, setting afire homes suspected of sheltering rebels. Two helicopters strafed the thickly forested hillsides.
With an overnight calm holding into Monday, a handful of peasants ventured back to their homes in Gajre, walking along the main road littered with spent cartridges and pocked with mortar craters. Dead sheep and other livestock lay on the ground, and smoke billowed from a house and scattered brush fires.
After taking Gajre, troops regrouped and set up positions overlooking Lavce, another rebel-held village just north of Gajre. The army said it had also taken Tetovo Kale, an ancient Turkish fortress cresting a hill that it said had been a rebel stronghold.
Two soldiers, one police officer and four civilians were injured, government spokesman Antonio Milososki said. Police spokesman Stevo Pendarovski said the four civilians were a family riding in a taxi that entered an area of intense combat. He said the army had "captured several terrorists."
While not suggesting all-out victory, Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski said government forces were doing well, asserting that the thrust to "clear the terrain of terrorists . . . is being carried out successfully, and already key positions have been taken."
But the army acknowledged that the rebels, who have ties to ethnic Albanian militants in the neighboring Yugoslav province of Kosovo, were formidable and well-armed opponents. Pendarovski said a police vehicle was sprayed with machine-gun fire in an ambush north of the capital, Skopje, although the five officers inside escaped injury.
"The commanders on the ground confirmed that we are facing an organized terrorist resistance, including sophisticated weapons, cannons and mortars," Army Col. Blagoja Markovski said Sunday.
NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson were heading to Macedonia later Monday along with European Union security affairs chief Javier Solana for talks on the crisis.
They planned to reiterate their support for the Macedonian government, but also urge moderation and restraint, said Solana's spokeswoman, Cristina Gallach.
The opposition ethnic Albanian party in Macedonia, the Democratic Prosperity Party, announced it was boycotting parliament beginning Monday. Party leader Imer Imeri demanded that President Boris Trajkovski end the army offensive and that the rebels lay down their arms.
Milososki said Sunday's offensive, which the government had threatened last week to "neutralize and eliminate" the rebels, had gone according to plan.
"Several terrorists positions have been taken," he said. "We will go on until the final takeover of all terrorist positions."
Hundreds of refugees streamed across the border into Kosovo early Monday. Many told of Macedonian helicopters firing on them as they fled their homes.
"While walking through the hills, helicopters came above our heads and started firing into the woods which were filled by refugees," said Arif Azemi, 35, after walking for 10 hours to Kosovo with his five children in tow.
The rebels in Macedonia say their goal is limited to more rights for ethnic Albanians within Macedonia, who are outnumbered by Slavs three to one. The government accuses them of seeking independence and drawing on Kosovo for fighters and weapons.
Although ethnic relations with the majority Slavs had been relatively trouble-free, substantial numbers of the ethnic Albanian minority felt they are being treated as second-class citizens. The struggle appears to have radicalized a large segment of Macedonian Albanians.
"This is a fight against the terrorists, not against any single ethnic community," national security adviser Nikola Dimitrov said in Skopje.
Gjorgji Trendafilov, a Defense Ministry spokesman, said the army was "doing its best to avoid unnecessary destruction of civilian homes." But ethnic Albanians in Gajre expressed outrage at the army attack, asserting the assault targeted the houses of innocent civilians instead of insurgent positions.
"They think that every house is a bunker," said Nuri Junozic, 46.