The Algerian authorities struggled to tighten security after a new attack left 20 people dead overnight on Saturday, near the end of the bloodiest Ramadan since Algeria plunged into violence six years ago. The latest massacre brings to 89 the number of civilians killed this week, security services said.
It took place in the hamlet of Haouch Mecharef, on the road between Tiaret, 250km south-west of Algiers, and Frenda, the security services said in a statement. Those who died had been "killed in a cowardly way," they added, using the customary terms to designate killings in which the victims are stabbed.
The Interior Minister, Mr Mostefa Benmansour, visited the area, while the security services said they had started an "intensive" search to find those responsible for this "ignoble act" carried out on Saturday night.
Transport officials quoted by state radio yesterday said that security measures and baggage searches were being further increased, particularly in stations. Thousands of people are expected to be on the move in the run-up to the end of Ramadan which comes on Wednesday in Algeria.
Newspapers also called on residents to be "vigilant" ahead of the traditional three-day festival of Aid el-Fitr marking the end of the fasting month, which extremists view as propitious to their Jihad or holy war.
Yesterday's announcement of 20 more deaths came after accounts of separate killings that left 17 civilians dead in recent days, press reports said. Eleven people, including a five-year-old child and a 70-year-old woman, were killed overnight Friday in the western region of Sidi Bel Abbes. Press reports and witnesses said that at least 25 people have been hurt and more than 80 injured in bomb attacks over the past week.
Although no one has claimed responsibility for the attacks, they bear the hallmarks of the Armed Islamic Group (GIA).
In counter-operations, more than 40 Islamic extremists were killed in battles with the security forces or fighting between rival Islamic factions, according to the Algerian press.
Two bomb blasts last Monday coincided with a fruitless visit by EU officials to discuss the ongoing violence. The troika of EU foreign ministers, representing past, present and future EU heads (Luxembourg, Britain and Austria), will discuss the EU's unsuccessful mission to Algeria today.
Meanwhile, a delegation of Arab deputies expressed its solidarity with Algerian authorities, rejecting any "interference" in the stricken nation.
So far the bombs which have exploded in this year's Ramadan have been small, home-made devices.
In Ramadan last year several huge car-bomb attacks left scores of people dead and more than 200 wounded in the capital.
But this year's small bombs have been accompanied by a series of massacres in the west and centre of Algeria in which hundreds of people have been kiled, according to unofficial figures. The government says the number is much lower.
Since the violence began in 1992, when the army cancelled elections that the now-banned Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) was set to win, between 60,000 and 80,000 have died.