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Close To 40 Dead In 24 Hours Of Algerian Ramadan Violence
ALGIERS (AFP) - Up to 40 civilians have been killed in a wave of massacres across Algeria attributed to armed Islamists, in the latest bloody turn to the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Fifteen travelers were killed west of the Algerian capital late Sunday when an armed group opened fire on a bus, and five people were killed in a separate incident one hour later, local sources said.
Late Saturday at least 17 youths were murdered after Islamists stormed a dormitory.
The 15 travelers died in the hail of bullets at around 8:00 pm (19:00 GMT) Sunday at Tenes, situated 200 kilometers (130 miles) west of Algiers. Local sources blamed the incident on individuals belonging to the Armed Islamic Group (GIA).
The sources said the attackers quickly fled the scene after the attack, which also left seven people wounded in one of the bloodiest incidents since the commencement of Islam's holy month of Ramadan on November 27th.
Since the start of the month of fasting, more than 200 people have died in violence in Algeria. Prior to the weekend attacks, most of the victims have been members of the government forces and armed insurgents, according to estimates from press reports.
Sunday's second incident, just one hour later, occurred at Khemis Miliana, 120 kilometers west of the capital and left five dead including three women, local inhabitants said.
Late Saturday, at least 16 students and a supervisor were killed by an armed group at a boarding school at Medea, 80 kilometers south of Algiers.
The youths were shot dead by an armed group that entered the dormitory of Medea's vocational high school, in the middle of the town, at around 9:30 pm Saturday, witnesses said.
The attackers, whom witnesses said were also from the GIA, entered the dormitory under cover of darkness and opened fire. Victims were all aged between 15 and 18.
According to some witnesses, 19 students and two supervisors were killed in the attack, but Algerian security services said late Sunday that the toll was 16 killed and six injured.
Officials blamed the attack on "a terrorist group."
The Medea region has been particularly bloody this month, with up to 12 Algerian soldiers killed in an ambush on Wednesday at Ksar El-Boukhari, near Medea.
Newspapers Sunday said Algerian security forces used air-to-ground missiles fired from helicopters to kill 18 armed Islamits in a major operation against insurgents between Tuesday and Thursday of last week.
The sweep in Jijel region, east of Algiers, was launched after extremists killed nine communal guards in an ambush in the same region.
El-Youm newspaper said the extremists killed in the operation had belonged to a group called the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) led by Hassan Hattab, which has rejected President Abdelaziz Bouteflika's moves towards national reconciliation.
Insurgency by opposition groups has claimed at least 100,000 lives in Algeria since they took up arms in 1992, after the army called off the second round of elections the Islamic Salvation Front was poised to win.
In July 1999, Bouteflika offered a six-month amnesty on specific conditions to armed groups, which led hundreds of fighters to turn themselves in.
The president has ordered the security forces to crack down mercilessly on those who failed to take up the offer.
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