Foreigners by the Hundreds Flee Anarchy in Albania

Hundreds of Americans and other foreign nationals were airlifted from this convulsed capital Friday--many under gunfire--while vigilante squads of armed Albanian men roamed the streets, unleashing automatic weapons at will.

U.S. and German military forces came under attack and returned fire as they tried to escort frightened missionaries, business people and embassy officials to safety.

The U.S. helicopter airlift from Tirana was suspended just before dusk after machine-gunners at an antiaircraft battery opened fire on a U.S. Marine Cobra helicopter, American military officials said.

The Cobra, which was not hit, shot back, destroying the machine-gun emplacement. The pilot of another Cobra spotted a man carrying what appeared to be a shoulder-mounted missile. The missile was never launched, and the threat ended after the helicopter fired its guns.

No foreigners were injured in the attack, but about 80 people awaiting evacuation were stranded in a hillside residential compound, eating military rations and camping out or sleeping in garages.

U.S. military officials said in Washington that they intended to resume the airlift when it was safe and that they did not believe the gunfire came because of hostility to Americans.

Rather, said Marine Lt. Gen. Peter Pace, chief of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, “there are folks out there who’ve gotten a weapon and are just firing the things in the air.”

In Albania’s principal Adriatic port, Durres, looters raided food storehouses, fought over sugar and ran pell-mell through the streets, witnesses said. Many Albanians have flocked to the city hoping for a way out of their nation.

Anarchy triggered by the collapse of costly pyramid schemes continued to claim lives and defy confused European and American attempts to mediate the crisis. An Albanian plea for foreign military intervention was initially rebuffed, but some European officials suggested that an international police force will have to be deployed to contain the chaos.

At least 11 people were reported killed and more than 200 wounded Friday in Tirana from gunfire that was largely random.

Albania’s impotent day-old government held urgent talks with envoys from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, but President Sali Berisha, the inspiration for much of the violence, refused to heed opposition calls that he step down, according to French and Italian news accounts quoting Berisha or people close to him.

Brokering a resolution to the Albanian conflict, which has already sent a wave of refugees to Italy and the rest of Europe, is complicated by the fact that mediators really have no government to work with. The new 34-year-old prime minister has little authority, and Berisha is widely hated.

Rebels in southern Albania and ordinary people from Tirana and elsewhere are demanding Berisha’s resignation as the fundamental condition before they will lay down weapons seized in recent weeks from government arms depots.

The prime minister, Bashkim Fino, met for several hours on an Italian warship in the Adriatic Sea with OSCE mediators who hoped to bring about peace.

Late Friday, Fino told a small group of American reporters that after consulting with the mediators, he met with Berisha for about an hour and conveyed the recommendations of the OSCE.

Fino pledged to restore order and announced the dismissal of the head of Albania’s dreaded secret police, Bashkim Gazidede. As he spoke, the sounds of automatic gunfire and ambulance sirens filled the air.

Men in civilian clothes, armed with Kalashnikovs and riding armored personnel carriers, paraded up and down a central Tirana street. Shooting off volleys of gunfire, they appeared to be supporters of Berisha and were later seen harassing motorists, searching cars and staking out the road that evacuees were taking.

A few yards from where the Americans were being evacuated, the vigilantes apparently waged a gun battle with “civilians” that left at least four people dead. Details were sketchy, but the men could be seen firing toward one another and over the heads of terrified passersby.

The Americans and Europeans being evacuated Friday lived through harrowing ordeals.

A German military helicopter trying to land at a military airfield outside Tirana was confronted by white vans seemingly holding members of the secret police. Witnesses’ accounts varied, but someone, either secret police or civilians armed with assault rifles, fired on the helicopter.

German troops hurled themselves to combat positions and returned fire, while the evacuees, many of whom were religious workers, cowered on the ground of the bare airfield, clinging to one another among their luggage. Many prayed.

British, French and Italian troops evacuating their compatriots fought off desperate Albanians who tried to storm onto helicopters and boats.

Hundreds of Albanians were reported to be reaching Italy’s shores across the Adriatic--including such key members of Berisha’s discredited former government as the defense minister. And the entire Albanian navy was reported to have deserted to Italy, sailing to the Italian port of Brindisi with white flags aflutter.

In Washington, Defense Secretary William S. Cohen said all countries in the region were concerned about the “state of anarchy” because “if you have a mass flow of refugees trying to move into other countries, that could cause some instability.” U.S. officials were “watching the situation very close,” he said, adding that they were not planning any military action.

The 26th U.S. Marine Expeditionary Unit ferried Americans by chopper to the amphibious assault ship Nassau in the Adriatic, lifting off from a U.S. housing compound on the edge of Tirana that the Marines had lined with barbed wire and dotted with dug-in fighting positions. Nearly 500 Americans and dozens of people of other nationalities were evacuated, and most will be transported to Italy, the Clinton administration said.

The departing Americans said that they were leaving with mixed emotions but that the disintegration of law and order in Albania had forced them to flee.

“We ducked a few times,” said Rob Provost, 32, a missionary from Camarillo, Calif., who was leaving with his wife and small child. “It sounded so close.”

Terry Cooper, 54, of Tyler, Texas, had lived in Albania off and on since 1991 to write a book. Waiting for a Sea Knight helicopter with his just-completed manuscript tucked in a backpack, Cooper said he was leaving because circumstances in Albania had deteriorated so rapidly.

“No one is in charge, and the longer that is the case, the situation is at best chaotic.”

Times staff writer Paul Richter in Washington contributed to this report.