BULGARIA: A tough regime is tackling crime to the delight of Bulgarian citizens. Chris Stephen reports from Sofia.
Bulgarians have been shocked by news that a gang of suspected mafia hitmen arrested in a police swoop on organised crime have turned out to be former members of the country's elite anti-terrorist commando force.
The six-strong team were former Barrets, Bulgaria's equivalent of the US Delta Force, who are accused of quitting the service, then hiring themselves out as killers to the nation's drug mafias.
They were arrested as the government of the former king, now prime minister, Simeon Saxe-Coburg, faces its toughest challenge since he was voted to power in elections last year.
Gun battles have raged through the streets of the normally sedate capital, Sofia, and other towns for the past two weeks, leaving five men wounded and one dead.
The carnage is the result of a bitter turf-war by drugs gangs. Such violence, so common in much of the rest of the Balkans, is almost unknown in Bulgaria, a country which is free of the ethnic hatred and nationalism that has so scarred other parts of eastern Europe.
The police response has been equally spectacular. All leave has been cancelled, the Interior Ministry has been put on a semi-war footing, and thousands of raids have been made on night-clubs, bars, cafes and other suspected mafia haunts.
In the past two weeks a total of 1,049 mafia suspects have been arrested across the country, leaving jails bursting and the courts overwhelmed.
Leading the raids is lantern-jawed Boyko Borissov, nicknamed "Rambo" by a grateful population.
As chief secretary of the Interior Ministry, he has dragooned his men into the biggest police operation seen in Bulgaria since the days of the old Iron Curtain.
The Barrets unit is used to guard Simeon, as well as the President and visiting heads of state. Borissov has begun a purge of the rest of the unit, promising: "This squad must be cleared of corrupt employees." There is speculation in Sofia that the men, whose service pay is small, were lured by the big money offered for contract killings.
Meanwhile, the police operations have fanned out around the country. Each day sees a new haul of drugs, drug money and firearms. Raids on addresses of the former Barrets men have unearthed an arsenal including Kalashnikov automatic weapons, grenades, ammunition and explosives.
Another raid has stumbled on what appears to be a factory producing tablets, possibly ecstasy, for sale in western Europe. Enough chemicals for 400,000 tablets were seized in the raid and are now being analysed.
None of this has stopped the mafia's battling. On Sunday in the latest battle, machine-gun fire sprayed the streets of the coastal resort of Varna, leaving one man dead.
Under communism, the police raids now under way would inspire fear. Now they take place amid massive public support. Borrissov has become the most popular man in Bulgaria, with 70 per cent ratings in the polls.
Above all, many Bulgarians feel that the authorities are at last grappling with the mafia.
"For the first time in Bulgaria the police are able to catch such a big mafia group," says Sofia TV journalist Elena Yoncheva. "In Bulgaria, we always thought that there was supreme corruption. And suddenly everything is happening, and we are thinking that maybe the police are doing their job."
Most of the heroin bought by western Europeans arrives from Asia through Bulgaria: last year anti-drugs police made a record haul, seizing 2,000kg of high-grade heroin. Just as significantly, 140 police and customs officers suspected of collusion with the drugs gangs were arrested.
These raids may be the boost that the government needed. Simeon is the first former Balkan monarch to taste power again, being elected on a wave of popular support last year by voters sick of the corruption of conventional political parties.