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About 400 Albanian police officers, backed up by two army helicopters, have launched an assault on a major illegal marijuana-growing village known as the "cannabis kingdom", after gunmen there fatally shot one policeman and wounded two others.
Gunfire and the sounds of heavier weaponry could be heard coming from the southern village of Lazarat throughout Wednesday, although the shooting could not be heard later in the evening.
Reports said that machinegun fire and anti-tank rockets ricocheted around police as they initially attempted to enter the area in the early hours of Wednesday.
Police spokesman Gentian Mullai said officers had identified 21 suspects and called on them to surrender, also asking residents and authorities to cooperate.
"If the armed group responds by shooting, police will eliminate them," a police statement said.
"[Police] are keeping under control an isolated armed group in the village."
Police officers said they were targeting a couple of houses near the place where their colleagues were shot early on Wednesday, believing the suspects were there.
Lazarat, which is 200km south of the capital, Tirana, has been cordoned off, with checkpoints set up for everyone going in or out, while journalists have been kept outside the village.
Police spokesman Ardi Bita said the shots were fired by a suspected criminal gang from a house in Lazarat, which has about 5,000 residents.
Lazarat came to prominence in 2014 after a five-day police siege in which special police forces with armoured personnel carriers came under intense fire with automatic weapons and rocket launchers from local homes. The raid destroyed 102 tonnes of marijuana and 530,000 marijuana plants with an estimated market value at the time of €6.4 billion (HK$55.5 billion) - more than 60 per cent of the impoverished country's annual gross domestic product.
Wednesday's shoot-out came after police in the village stopped a car transporting weapons, seizing two rifles and one automatic rifle and arresting the driver.
Police had launched an operation in the morning to arrest suspects who had shot at but did not injure policemen stationed in the village overnight. Seven people have been questioned.
Officers were stopping and searching people and vehicles attempting to gain entrance to the village, according to a photographer at the scene.
The scale of the drug production was long an embarrassment for Albania, which is a Nato member now aspiring to join the European Union.
There is believed to be little serious cannabis production in Lazarat now, but the region retains a reputation for defiance of law-enforcement authorities.
Local media said the gunmen who fired at the police officers on Wednesday may have been the ones who held off police for several days during last year's crackdown before slipping away under cover of night by trekking over a mountain.
Prime Minister Edi Rama, along with his interior and health ministers, visited the injured police officers in a hospital in Tirana, where they had been airlifted by helicopter. Both had non-life threatening injuries.
"We are in mourning ... and I believe every Albanian who values the honesty, courage and service of the state police is in mourning too," Rama said.
The US Embassy in Tirana also condemned the violence against police and expressed condolences over the death of Ibrahim Basha, who had been deployed with NATO forces in Afghanistan.
The Delegation of the European Union to Albania also saluted "the courage of the Albanian police officers who are serving their country by taking forward the fight against drug trafficking."
Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse


Albanian police clash with armed gangs during raid of 'cannabis kingdom' village

Albanian police detain a man. Photo: AFP

Albanian police detain a man.

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Authorities urge suspects to surrender after shoot-out at village where previous raids led to 102 tonnes of marijuana being destroyed


Albanian police clash with armed gangs during raid of 'cannabis kingdom' village

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Authorities urge suspects to surrender after shoot-out at village where previous raids led to 102 tonnes of marijuana being destroyed

Authorities urge suspects to surrender after shoot-out at village where previous raids led to 102 tonnes of marijuana being destroyed