Macedonia Bombards Rebels as Support for Insurgency Grows

Macedonian gunners expanded their barrage against ethnic Albanian rebels Saturday, unleashing sustained artillery strikes across wooded foothills that have become a rallying point for the armed uprising seeking greater rights and recognition.

But the Slav-led government’s firepower appeared to be no match for the insurgents’ key weapon: growing support for the rebellion.

Security forces are unwilling to directly battle the rebels in the snow-topped mountains outside Tetovo, Macedonia’s second-largest city and capital of its ethnic Albanian heartland. And each day of long-range bombardment with no clear results undermines the government’s claim that it has the upper hand.

The insurgents, meanwhile, are winning new admirers. Even some highly influential leaders sense that a violent showdown may be the only way to challenge a system that they claim fosters discrimination and harassment against ethnic Albanians, who account for a quarter of Macedonia’s 2 million people.