SKOPJE -- Ten Macedonian soldiers were killed Wednesday in an Albanian rebel ambush west of Skopje, military officials said, the heaviest toll for a single day since fighting broke out six months ago, AFP reported.

The attack on a convoy of government troops took place near the village of Grupcin, on the road leading to the northern flashpoint city of Tetovo.

It touched off fighting that sources said raged for more than two hours.

"The fighting is continuing on the road between Skopje and Tetovo which has now been blocked off," a military official said at 1030 GMT.

The incident, the latest in a series of attacks by both sides, cast a cloud over ongoing peace talks between the country's Macedonian and ethnic Albanian parties.

The latest round of discussions, conducted under the auspices of international mediators, resumed at midday in the southwest resort town of Ohrid on an accord aimed at paving the way for NATO troops to enter the country to disarm the rebels.

Macedonian police on Tuesday killed five suspected Albanian rebels in a raid on a house in Skopje, the first of its kind, and described by police as a crackdown on "terrorists" but condemned by Albanian deputies as a "massacre."

Later Tuesday, ethnic Albanian rebels kidnapped five Macedonian civilians who were carrying out road work near Tetovo.

There was speculation the kidnapping was to retaliate for the killing of the five rebels and the arrest of five other Albanians in the dawn raids earlier the same day.

The majority ethnic Albanian town of Tetovo lies close to territory held by the rebels and has been the scene of fierce fighting for the last six months.

The guerrillas say they are battling for better rights for the country's ethnic Albanian minority, who make up up to one-third of the former Yugoslav republic's two million people.