One driver who refused to give up his car was killed on Tuesday night, prompting the Greeks to threaten to seal the border altogether.The Greek army has set up two lines of checkpoints all the way across its border with Albania. Coming in from Kakavia, soldiers check every passing vehicle. Immigrants are not the chief concern, as British and US citizens are checked every bit as thoroughly as Albanians. Officials in Athens say there is also a third layer of security operated by undercover agents, on the look-out for potential smugglers and criminals in the main towns in the Epirus region.Weapons are only one of many worries. “I don’t think these Kalashnikovs have much mass-market appeal, at least not in Greece, since more modern, lighter weapons, like Uzis, are far more practical for bank robberies,” one government official commented.Drugs are the really big issue in Greece. Hard drugs from Turkey have been entering the country in large quantities for some time, either directly or via Macedonia, according to Western intelligence officials.

Now there is a risk that marijuana grown in southern Albania may flood the Greek market too.Albania’s other key neighbour, Italy, is, if anything, more exposed to the influx of arms and drugs; its Adriatic coast is notoriously prone to smuggling activities and its mafia organisations are already well ensconced in operations with Albania. Italy receives large quantities of heroin travelling along an established drugs route from Turkey, through Bulgaria, Macedonia and northern Albania. The country has also been used, according to Italian investigators, as an entry point for arms flooding out of the Balkan region for resale in Africa and South America.The danger is that protracted chaos in Albania will make such smuggling routes easier to operate, exposing Italy to large quantities of contraband goods and strengthening domestic organised crime networks.Such issues have received little public airing in either Italy or Greece, with officials and the media preferring to talk about the more tangible risk of mass emigration. Many of those now escaping are members of the armed forces or of Mr Berisha’s old government – people with a political, not a personal, reason to escape.The Danish Foreign Minister, Niels Helveg Petersen, has suggested paying the insurgents to give up their weapons. Mr Helveg Petersen, the President of the Organisation for Cooperation and Security in Europe, clearly believes it is better to invest in peace now than risk a far more costly international intervention if the situation continues to deteriorate.. Western powers found themselves increasingly embroiled in Albania’s anarchy yesterday as gunmen fired on US, German and Italian military forces trying to rescue Western residents. The United States was forced to suspend its evacuation efforts after two US Marine helicopters were fired on from the ground while attempting to take American nationals to safety.

Gunmen also fired shots from a police van at German troops arriving at a military airport by helicopter to bring out stranded Western citizens. The Germans shot back in what was believed to be the first time German soldiers have used weapons in anger abroad since 1945.
Amid the spreading chaos, and with almost nobody noticing, Sali Berisha effectively ceased to be president of Albania yesterday. With the whole country seemingly clamouring for his departure and all state authority supplanted by gangs of armed men, the international community chose to leave him languishing alone in his palace and tried instead to broker a solution to the crisis with Bashkim Fino, his newly appointed prime minister.Mr Fino and ministers spent the day in talks on board an Italian warship with Franz Vranitzky, the former Austrian chancellor and special envoy for the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and begged the international community to intervene.Mr Vranitzky and other Western officials said they might consider some kind of policing operation to round up the rebels’ weapons, but only under strict conditions. Mr Vranitzky said he saw no alternative to outside military intervention.