17 Slain in Albanian Gun Battle
At least 17 people died in a gun battle in central Albania on Thursday, the most violent incident in two months of unrest in the former Communist state, the official ATS news agency reported.
There were differing accounts about what triggered Thursday’s violence. ATS said the killings began when 16 armed people went to the village of Levan, about 50 miles south of the capital, Tirana, and assassinated the chairman of the local council of elders.
Townspeople in turn “surrounded the group and killed them all,” ATS said. It gave no reason for the shooting of the chairman.
Another report indicated that the clash was caused by an argument between two families.
A 6-year-old boy also died Thursday, one day after men fired machine guns at the bus in which he was riding.
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