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21 kids massacred in cave
14/05/2006 18:32 - (SA)
Algiers - Security forces found 28 dead bodies, among them 21 children, in a secluded cave used as a hideout by an Algerian Islamic militant group, a newspaper reported on Sunday.
The bodies were discovered on Saturday in the Beni Khatab mountains, about 450km east of the Algerian capital, where authorities were hunting down suspected members of the al-Qaeda-linked Salafist Group for Call and Combat, reported El Chourouk newspaper.
It was unclear how long ago the victims had been killed. The dead were 21 children, four women and three militants, the paper said. Security forces did not immediately confirm the report.
The North African nation's insurgency has waned in recent years, with far fewer killings and kidnappings, and massacres on this scale are now rare.
The insurgency started in 1992, when the army cancelled Algeria's first multiparty legislative elections to thwart a likely victory by a now-banned Muslim fundamentalist party. The violence has killed an estimated 120 000 people.
- AP
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