Special Forces of Albania - Notable Missions

Notable Missions

• January 1991: In riots at the Shenkoll (Saint Nicholas) maximum security prison, an armed prisoner took several guards hostage. The attention of national and foreign media was drawn to the crisis. The government of the time sent in Unit 326, the predecessor of RENEA, which quelled the riots using tear gas and rubber bullets, without bloodshed. One operative was lightly wounded in the process.

• November 1992: Albania was plagued by massive floods, which inundated many parts of the country. RENEA distributed food and provided shelter and medical assistance for the uprooted via speedboat and helicopter. One operative (killed in the line of duty in August 1993) selflessly dived into the icy waters and saved three drowning shepherds.

• April 1996: In a diplomatic high-level meeting between the Italian president Oscar Luigi Scalfaro and Sali Berisha in Tirana, a deranged individual armed with a grenade with the safety pin removed sought to approach the two presidents. The two officials were immediately taken away from the scene, while a RENEA negotiator steadily approached the perpetrator and made contact by twisting his arm, taking the grenade from his hand and putting the safety pin back onto the weapon.

• January 1997: A female student in depressive state roamed the streets of Tirana with a grenade in her hand. A RENEA operator approached her and defused the situation without bloodshed.

• 1997: During the crisis that threw Albania in a state of anarchy as a result of the collapse of various pyramid schemes, where three quarters of the population lost their savings, RENEA was entrusted with the task of safeguarding the monetary and gold reserves of the National Bank and other financial institutions. RENEA accomplished the task by removing all valuables from the facilities in unarmed IVECO vans. No money was lost in the process. This operation, at a time when many police officers were killed by angry civilians, is remembered by the unit as Operation Kamikaze. During the same year, 90 per cent of all police stations were looted and taken over by armed individuals. RENEA retook possession of these facilities, recalled all officers to work, and re-established communications and security systems. In many cases, the operatives repaired all damaged property themselves.

• 1998–1999: During these years RENEA was engaged in fights with multiple gangs across the nation, which, as a result of the previous year's anarchy, were armed with weaponry ranging from personal equipment to artillery and anti-aircraft batteries looted from military depots.

• July 1998: The unit conducted a CT mission by arresting five Egyptian terrorists connected to Bin Laden's Al-Qaeda.

• March 1999: Three armed criminals murdered three police officers and four civilians. Subsequently they barricaded themselves into a house, taking hostage a couple and their 7 month-old daughter. A RENEA team went in, freed the hostages, and in the process killed the criminals.

• May 1999: An Albanian emigrant in Greece, disgruntled over payment with his employer, after complained to the Greek authorities and was escorted to the border and deported to Albania. After buying an AK-47 and two grenades, he returned to Greece and went to Thessaloniki, where he took hostage a bus carrying fourteen people. The Greek government gave him the $250,000 that he had asked for and allowed him to enter Albania with his hostages. Close to Tirana, the negotiators sought to convince him to let the hostages free. He wounded one and was killed in return by a RENEA sniper.

• 1999: Zani Caushi, leader of one of the most ruthless Albanian gangs, was arrested. The same fate befell the senior leaders of many other gangs.

• 1999: A gang that had held hostage and then released a senior police official was arrested.

• 1999: Acting on the request of the Italian government, an individual suspected of the murder of three police officers in Udine was arrested. Although exonerated of this murder, the individual remained behind bars due to other criminal activities.

• 2000–2001: In three separate operations, three individuals sought for the murder of Azem Hajdari, an Albanian MP, were arrested. This mission was important because Hajdari was one of the most unorthodox and controversial leaders of the political opposition at the time.

• February 2001: During Operation Journey Italia, RENEA took credit for destroying an Albanian-American gang, which, in partnership with the Medellín drug cartel and Italian and Albanian mafia, was exploring the possibility of turning Albania into a major international launching pad for the trafficking of cocaine. RENEA arrested all suspects, including a former senior police officer.

• January 2002: RENEA destroyed a gang of narcotics traffickers, which was trafficking than 100 kg (202.5 lb) heroin per trip. More than 1,000 kg (2,205 lb) of pure heroin was confiscated.

• 1990–2004: During the last decade and a half, RENEA has provided escort security to such high-level officials as: former United States Secretaries of State James Baker and Madeleine Albright, Pope John Paul II, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Italian President Oscar Luigi Scalfaro, and various Italian and Greek prime ministers, in addition to Albanian officials and international officials in government missions in Albania.