The last government checkpoint, a couple of soldiers at Ballsh, waved cars through.The first indication that we were in rebel territory came sooner than we had expected. Around the bend of a mountain road, just a few miles from Ballsh, a masked gunman stood beside a pile of stones blocking one lane. Behind him on the verge a sniper, head swathed in blue gauze, lay prone. Along the dirt road, which begins another 10 miles south, rebels waved their guns and asked us where the nearest police checkpoint was.The night before, soldiers at the Fier checkpoint were asking the same questions. The bridge south of Fier, on the main road to Vlora, is in rebel hands.On Saturday two army APCs probed the area and exchanged fire with rebels on the bridge, who responded by barricading the road with immovable concrete blocks "Sorry," they told us. "You can go on foot, but not with the car."They were extremely nervous, and told us one man had been killed in the shootout with the APCs. We were soon surrounded by dozens of people, keen to get the message across.

Gunmen on the bridge told us to leave, others to stay and hear their tale. One of the former, fearful of drawing enemy fire, leapt on the bonnet of our car and pointed his Kalashnikov through the windscreen. We left.We drove north back to a heavily guarded government checkpoint outsider Fier. The mood was sombre, the soldiers nervous."The situation is fifty-fifty, but I think it will get worse," said one one military man "Maybe there will be fighting. It will be like Los Angeles - the American soldiers fighting the American people."But perhaps Mr Berisha realised his army, whose conscripts have more in common with the rebels than with the ruling cadre, would not stand for that.Reporting in Albania, Media+. Was the government and family of the former Mexican president, Carlos Salinas de Gortari, in cahoots with the country's drug barons? Mexicans believe a trial opening in Houston, Texas, today could lift the lid on a Pandora's box tying in the Salinas family and former senior Mexican officials with the drug cartels. Mario Ruiz Massieu, a deputy attorney-general under Mr Salinas which made him the top man in the anti-narcotics programme, faces a civil trial over $9m (pounds 5.5m) he amassed in a Houston bank account.Seeking to confiscate the money, United States prosecutors will try to prove it came from pay-offs by druglords. Mr Ruiz Massieu says it came from legitimate business transactions and "bonuses" from Mr Salinas.US law enforcement sources say prosecution witnesses will link Mr Ruiz Massieu and his late brother, Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu, a former secretary- general of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), with the druglords of the Mexican Gulf cartel.Witnesses will also name Mr Salinas's brother, Raul, and father, also called Raul, a former senator, as taking massive pay-offs to protect the cartel.

There is reportedly no evidence suggesting Carlos Salinas, who lives in exile in Ireland, was involved with drug barons. Raul Salinas Jnr and his father deny ties with the narcos.Mexicans hope the trial may also shed some light on the 1994 assassination of Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu, who was formerly married to a sister of Carlos Salinas. Raul Salinas Jnr is in jail awaiting trial for allegedly ordering the killing, now believed to have been linked to the multi- million dollar drug trade.Carlos Salinas named Mario Ruiz Massieu to investigate the murder of his brother but Mario is now suspected of tampering with evidence to protect Raul Salinas The latter also faces trial for inexplicable wealth. Despite receiving only an official's salary, Mr Salinas was found to have more than $100m in more than 70 Swiss, British and other foreign bank accounts. Mexican prosecutors are investigating whether the money came from drug- trafficking.After fleeing Mexico three days after Raul Salinas's arrest, Mario Ruiz Massieu was arrested in Newark, New Jersey, in March 1995 for failing to declare $46,000 in cash on a customs form. He has been under house arrest in New Jersey since.The US federal prosecutors say an aide to Mr Massieu, former diplomat Jorge Stergios, carried suitcases full of dollars to Houston from Mexico City twice a month for his boss in 1994, the last year of Carlos Salinas's term. Prosecution documents say the money was in return for protecting Gulf cartel bosses from the law.In a deposition, Mr Ruiz Massieu said $500,000 was in bonuses from the Mexican president.