War in The Balkans: Ambushed at gunpoint in the badlands of Albania

AS WE rounded a corner, the headlights picked out a white Mercedes estate slung across the road. Our hearts sank. For a split second we hoped against hope it was an innocent breakdown. Then the burst of automatic gunfire told us otherwise.

It confirmed that this was indeed an ambush and we were the targets - or rather, our two four-wheel drive cars, computers, television and photographic gear, satellite phones - all the paraphernalia of modern journalism in remote and dangerous places.

Someone yanked open the car door - a black balaclavaed face peered in, shouting. Another burst of fire over our heads and the bandit - dressed in German camouflage and armed with an AK-47 - pulled us out and grabbed at our pockets. We didn't need to speak Albanian to understand that gesture and handed over a wad of cash (simply a sweetener, since we had far more money, passports, credit and press cards stashed about our persons) and a couple of wallets.

The bandits - we think there were probably four or five in total, though I only saw the one - pushed us towards the verge and we scrambled into the brambles, ducking in case they opened fire. Our "armed police escort", as they are known technically, who was paid to travel in our car, did not lift a finger, let alone a safety catch. Our man stood aimlessly by the roadside, watching, his Kalashnikov cradled safely. He made a vague gesture towards the bandit, who simply pushed him back. The robbery was over within five minutes and, as the three cars roared into the distance, we trudged back towards Bajram Curri, perhaps 2km away.

The robbers' haul must have topped pounds 150,000 - if they can fence all the technical equipment, that is; this on top of the TV cameras stolen from the BBC and Turkish television on the same road in the previous 48 hours. Bajram Curri, named after an Albanian patriot who fought the Serbs in the Thirties, stands alone as the capital of the "badlands" of northern Albania.

There are some modest, well-behaved pockets in the lawless north, such as the town of Kukes, the temporary refuge for 300,000 Kosovars expelled at gunpoint. Even in Bajram Curri, with its broad main street and peeling apartment buildings, ordinary people try to get by, unarmed. But not many of them.

Journalists dispatched to the area must take very specific precautions. First, find a gun for hire - there are plenty hanging around the lobby - and pay him to protect you. Second, try to persuade your new friend to use the safety catch and to point the Kalashnikov in the opposite direction. Third, leave your car in the one semi-secure car park in the centre of town - especially if it is a four-wheel drive vehicle, needed for the hideous mud tracks that pass for roads in northern Albania.

Other foreigners here - mostly monitors from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe and the European Union - travel with police or army escorts. Not that this necessarily helps. Three days ago, an OSCE Land Rover travelling to Tirana and escorted by police in a second car, was held up by three gunmen who did not even bother to wear masks. They drove off in the OSCE vehicle and a Mercedes, while the policemen watched.

Brand-new AK-47s, still greased up, were available for pounds 3 in Tropoje, a satellite of Bajram Curri, which held a semi-permanent car-boot sale in the muddy village square. But one of the biggest gun-runners of them all has since left town, moving his family to the coast for a better life - perhaps for any life, since Bajram Curri is even more damaging to the health of Albanians than to the wallets of foreigners.

Fatmir Hakraj was the chief of police in Bajram Curri until the day his brother was ambushed and killed - nine bullet wounds to his body.

Mr Hakraj returned to the station, handed in his notice and then, as he was descending the stairs, saw another police officer suspected of involvement in the murder. He shot him and walked out.

Then, the story goes, Mr Hakraj shot dead eight others (one for each bullet hole) and rejoined the force. "He's regarded as a man of honour for this," said one Westerner.