International Force Begins Deployment to Calm Albania

Armed foreign troops landed in Albania on Friday for the first time since World War II, carrying the prospect of stability to a country plagued by months of violence, food shortages and political upheaval.

An advance team of 120 Italian paratroopers arrived by air and sea as part of a 6,000-member international force with a mission to secure aid deliveries.

Smiling and saluting boys greeted 20 Italian soldiers in the western port of Durres, 20 miles from the capital of Tirana, as they disembarked from a naval vessel in jeeps armed with machine guns.

Three Hercules cargo planes brought 100 Italian paratroopers, along with jeeps and military equipment.

Of the eight nations providing troops for the force, Italy will have the largest contingent, with more than 2,000. The international force, expected to be fully operational in about two weeks, will secure the port of Vlore, 50 miles southwest of the capital, as well as Durres and the Tirana airport. Vlore has been a center of the unrest.

Two people died Friday in Tirana in shooting incidents that wounded 15 others, and a man was killed in a land-mine explosion in Vlore. Two doctors were seriously wounded when gunmen attacked them in the northern town of Shkoder.

The country was thrown into disarray in January when thousands of people demonstrated violently against collapsed investment schemes in which many had invested their savings.

Insurgents have looted army bases of weapons and ammunition, taking control of much of southern Albania and demanding the resignation of President Sali Berisha, whom they blame for the failed schemes.