an end to the negotiations between Chams and Greek resistance groups. The Germans tried to win over the Muslim Chams by offering money, supplies, guns, uniforms and promising a union with Albania in the event of an Axis victory. Approximately 300 Chams took part in a series of anti-guerrilla sweeps in Thesprotia and within four days (in August 1943), 150 people were murdered, while hundreds more were taken hostage and transported to prison camps in Ioannina. The operations continued well into the autumn when several villages were burned by a joint Cham-German force, culminating in the executions of 49 notables of Paramithia as reprisals for a guerrilla attack. By the end of 1943, the presence of the Germans also encouraged the Chams to organise a parallel state, which progressively replaced the Greek authorities across the region. A Muslim committee was elected, that would serve as a de facto civilian authority in the Paramithia region. In early 1944 the Albanian notables appointed their own council presidents, militia men and rural guards, and imposed a compulsory tax on the agricultural products and any transactions of the Greek peasants. They harassed in many ways the Christian notables and peasants who resisted, and these efforts had a detrimental effect on the Greek population. This atmosphere against the local Greeks who had suffered under Germans, Italians and Chams, led to an explosive polarization which would have constrained any motivation for joint Greek-Cham resistance. Expulsion First expulsion by EDES During the summer of 1944, the right-wing head of the National Republican Greek League (EDES), Napoleon Zervas, asked the Cham Albanians to join EDES, but their response was negative. After that and in accordance to orders given specifically to EDES by the Allied forces to push them out of the area, fierce fighting occurred between the two sides. In particular, Cham Albanian units were fighting together with the German army in all conflicts that occurred in Thesprotia: from the end of June 1944 until the German withdrawal. According to British reports, the Cham collaborationist bands managed to flee to Albania with all of their equipment, together with a half million stolen cattle as well as 3,000 horses, leaving only the elderly members of the community behind. On 18 June 1944, EDES forces with Allied support launched an attack on Paramythia. After short-term conflict against a combined Cham-German garrison, the town was finally under Allied command. Soon after,