THE Albanian Prime Minister, Mr Bashkim Fino, went to the rebel-held south of his country yesterday for the first time since insurgents seized the region.
Mr Fino told the rebel leaders that one of their key demands, the disbanding of the dreaded Shik secret police, had taken place.
"Since yesterday, there is no more Shik in Albania," he told rebels at a meeting in the southern town of Gjirokaster, 30 km from the Greek border. "We are going to build a new intelligence service, with a new face," Mr Fino said. "From now, anyone who identifies himself as a Shik officer is a liar."
Mr Fino said he met President Sali Berisha on Monday and they accepted the resignations of Shik chief, Mr Bashkim Gazidede, and his deputy, Mr Bujar Rama. The finance ministry had stopped funding for the group from Monday, he said.
Shik, the National Information Service, was set up in 1991 after a Stalinist regime which had ruled the Balkan country for 45 years collapsed.
Mr Fino arrived by helicopter in Gjirokaster and was greeted warmly by rebels bristling with guns, local reporters said. A former Socialist mayor in Gjirokaster, he also shook hands with Mr Gjoleke Malaj, the rebel leader in Tepelene to the north. He told reporters he was in the region to meet the "legal representatives of local power and public order" but quickly moved to discussions with rebels and elected officials alike.
Elected officials have remained in the region but the south has been run by rebel Committees of Public Salvation since the army was driven out and weapons depots looted in early March.
Mr Berisha was forced to name Mr Fino, an opposition Socialist, to head an all-party crisis government on March 11th. Mr Berisha also bowed to demands for elections three years early and they are due in June.
Albania has been swept by violence since January when a string of popular investment schemes collapsed, wiping out millions of pounds in savings.
The anti-government riots and protests evolved into a full-scale uprising against Mr Berisha, who is blamed for letting the unregulated and fraudulent "pyramid" schemes flourish.
Most of the south is now outside government control and the rebels main demand is that Mr Berisha resign.
After his trip to the rebel south Mr Fino will leave by car on today for Greece to meet the Prime Minister, Mr Costas Simitis, to discuss the Albanian crisis.
Meanwhile, Italy said yesterday that it would press ahead with plans to lead an international security force to Albania despite mounting domestic pressure to think again after the fatal sinking of a crowded refugee boat.
The Italian Prime Minister Mr Romano Prodi, had argued at the weekend that the most urgent requirement was for the UN "International Protection Force" to leave for Albania as soon as possible.
The Defence Minister, Mr Beniamino Andreatta, said the Italian-dominated force, expected to number some 5,000 men, could start deploying in the Balkan country by April 10th.
Mr Andreatta said that the navy would continue controversial interdiction patrols of the Adriatic, where Albanian authorities say at least 83 refugees were drowned last Friday when their boat sank after a collision with an Italian corvette.
Italy began the patrols late last month after some 13,000 Albanians fled to Italian shores in an uncontrolled exodus from their country's armed upheaval.
Calls from some of the government's own supporters for a halt to the naval action, and for Italy to keep its troops out of Albania, grew yesterday in the wake of the disaster and reported threats from Albanians to the safety of Italian forces. Hard-left leader, Mr Fausto Bertinotti, whose Communist Refoundation party ensures the government its lower house majority, said he was against sending a security force.
"It would only aggravate the situation in Albania and expose (the mission) itself to all sorts of dangers," Mr Bertinotti said.
The proposed multinational force, which has received the go-ahead from the UN Security Council and the Albanian parliament, will also require a vote of support from both houses of the Italian parliament.
It is designed to secure the ports of Durres and Vlore - from where the boat that sank set out - and Tirana airport for a planned European humanitarian relief mission.
. The flood of lethal weapons on the streets of Albania continued to take its toll on the population as 10 people died from gunshot wounds and grenade blasts in the past 24 hours, the interior ministry yesterday said in Tirana. Five people died after being hit by stray bullets or being involved in grenade accidents in various locations around the country.
In Vlore, a father accidentally shot dead his 21-year-old son while cleaning a pistol. In Tirana a boy of 15 died when the grenade he was playing with exploded.
In three separate incidents, three others died in settling of scores between rival gangs, one of them in the heart of the capital.