Tetovo, Macedonia — Fighting between Macedonian security forces and ethnic Albanian rebels raged for a second day Thursday on the edge of Macedonia's most populous ethnic Albanian city.
Macedonian Slavs fled in cars and vans and the exodus seemed to pick up as explosions and gunfire reached a crescendo in the late afternoon. It added to fears that the tiny country of 2 million could be headed for a civil war between majority Macedonian Slavs and minority ethnic Albanians.
"It is getting worse, so we are getting out," declared Olga Kocevska, 75, who was waiting to be driven with her four jittery grandchildren to a relative's home in the capital, Skopje, about 30 miles away.
Jance Jahovski stood in the doorway of Tetovo's city hall watching towers of smoke rise from trees set afire by mortar shells.
The government Thursday said NATO might be asked to battle the "terrorists."
Ethnic Albanian rebels, who call themselves the National Liberation Army, are crossing into Macedonia from NATO-protected Kosovo, a mainly ethnic Albanian province of Serbia, Yugoslavia's dominant republic.
"Maybe these groups can, for a period of time, conquer some villages," Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski told reporters Thursday.
But, "Those who want to start a war in Macedonia should know that Macedonia will defend itself with all available means. And if forced, it won't be picky about choosing allies."
A convoy of about 10 military trucks marked KFOR, the acronym for the NATO-led force in Kosovo, headed west toward Tetovo along one of Macedonia's main highways Thursday evening.
Minutes behind it was a convoy of six Macedonian army trucks packed with soldiers. Each truck was pulling a small artillery piece, and an army ambulance brought up the rear.
Macedonia became independent in 1991 from former Yugoslavia. Until now, it has avoided the ethnic maelstroms that drove millions from their homes and cost more than 200,000 lives in Croatia, Bosnia-Herzgovina and Kosovo.
Macedonia is governed by a coalition of parties. The ethnic Albanian insurgency that began just over a month ago has not yet provoked a backlash by Macedonian Slavs.
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