Paris - Gunmen cut the throats of six farm guards, murdered a restaurant owner and killed two government soldiers in separate attacks in Algeria, Algerian newspapers said yesterday.
The gunmen, thought to be Muslim rebels, slashed the throats of the farm guards in the Hennaya area in Tlemcen province, some 400km west of Algiers, overnight on Monday/ Tuesday, said the newspaper, Liberte.
Rebels killed two government soldiers on Tuesday when they ambushed a patrol near Ziamah Mansouriah in the eastern province of Jijel, 220km east of Algiers, according to El Watan newspaper. One rebel was shot dead in the exchange of fire, it said.
The newspaper did not say to which guerrilla faction the rebels belonged to. Jijel is widely known as the stronghold of the Islamic Salvation Army (AIS), which has officially been observing a ceasefire since October 1st.
It was not clear whether the ambush was carried out by an AIS splinter group or by members of the Armed Islamic Group (GIA), a rival of the AIS which has dismissed the ceasefire as a betrayal of what it calls a holy war to topple the government.
In the coastal city Boumerdes, 40km east of Algiers, gunmen thought to be Muslim rebels killed a restaurant owner on Monday night, said Le Matin.
Security forces shot dead three rebels near Khemis el Khechna, about 30km south-east of Algiers, on Sunday, and destroyed six blockhouses in Bainem forest, a GIA stronghold on the northern edge of Algiers, La Tribune reported.
News of the killings came one day after Algeria's army chief, Lieut-Col Mohamed Lamari, said in a rare interview that the security situation had in general improved across the country.
"We are far away from the situation when the criminals attacked the institutions, the infrastructures, the security forces everywhere in the country," said Col Lamari.
Col Lamari, apparently defending the army and the security forces against human rights advocates at home and abroad who cast doubts on the army's willingness and ability to protect the lives of civilians, said Muslim rebels were increasingly rejected by the people and were targeting isolated civilians.