Albanian snipers traded sporadic fire with the Macedonian army overnight after heavy fightingleft one soldier dead and another injured, security officials said today.
Occasional firing was reported along the fringes of rebel-held territory near the northern city of Kumanovo, between the villages of Nikustak and Vistica, until about midnight (2200 GMT).
An uneasy calm then settled across the trouble-hit north of the country, officials said.
But there was some sniper fire from the rebel village of Radusa, 40 kilometres northwest of Skopje on the border with the breakaway Yugoslav province of Kosovo.
Earlier today, a policeman was seriously injured near the village when the rebels, who appear to be opening a new front in the area, fired a rocket at a police checkpoint.
The Macedonian soldier was killed and another injured earlier in the day in another rocket attack on an army convoy near the village of Tanusevci, on the border with Kosovo, where the ethnic Albanian uprising started in February.
The killing came amid an upsurge of violence in the crisis-hit country and while Macedonian leaders tried to reach a lasting peace deal between the leaders of the majority Slav and minority ethnic Albanian communities.
The country's leaders met with the European Union's special envoy to Macedonia, Mr Francois Leotard, and US special representative Mr James Pardew in Skopje late yesterday in a fresh effort to reach a political settlement for the crisis.
AFP