At least 175 people have been killed in the past week alone in Algeria in massacres of villagers or bomb attacks blamed on Islamic fundamentalists, according to tolls compiled in the press yesterday.
In the latest incidents in a wave of violence preceding local elections in October, an estimated total of 30 people died in a bomb blast on Friday afternoon and in an overnight attack on a hamlet south of Algiers.
The bomb exploded in a square in Djelfa, 300 km south of the capital, killing between seven and 11 people and injuring another 20, the press said. In the other attack, suspected Islamic extremists killed 21 villagers in Zeboudja, near Medea, 80 km south of Algiers. Victims, who included twins aged five months, five women and three elderly men, had their throats cut.
A man was whipped to death and had his throat cut by an armed group in the village of Sidi Bakhti, near Tiaret, south-west of Algiers, newspapers also reported, without giving any details or motives for the murder, which resembled an execution.
In the same district, a family of six, including two women, was wiped out in the commune of Medghoussa. A six-month-old baby was spared and left among the bodies. Another person was killed elsewhere, the newspapers said.
In further incidents in the Tiaret area, eight people were knifed to death at Ouled SidiYahia and four young men had their throats slit while they were playing dominoes with friends. Their friends owed their lives to the timely intervention of the village's communal watch.
Two shepherds had their throats slit on Tuesday near Djellala, in the western Tlemcen district.
Another four people were killed at barricades set up across roads by armed Islamic groups in the south-west and south of the country.
On Tuesday night, nine members of a family were massacred in their house in Benamor, between Larbaa and the neighbouring district of Sidi-Moussa, around 20 km south-east of Algiers.
Last Sunday, a total of 111 villagers was massacred in the Ain Defla and Blida districts, according to the daily Le Matin. The paper also said that 24 armed Islamic extremists had also been killed in recent days in security forces operations in the Larbaa and Blida areas.
Massacres of villagers and security force operations against the Islamic extremists are widely reported in the press but have not been confirmed by the authorities.
Authorities have also kept silent on the purported death of the leader of the Armed Islamic Group, Antar Zouabri, which was announced in the press but denied by the GIA in statements to a Moroccan radio station and by its underground news sheet, El Ansar.
In another underground news sheet, a GIA leader justified the massacres, saying that enemies of Islam had to have their throats cut "from the youngest children to the oldest old men".