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Algerian militants massacre
02/10/2002 23:08 - (SA)
Algiers, Algeria - Suspected Islamic militants shot dead 13 people, including eight women and a child, in a remote village in western Algeria, the government news agency reported on Wednesday.
Attackers opened fire inside the homes of two families late
on Tuesday in Oued Chorfa, in the Ain Defla region, west of the capital, Algiers.
Eight women, four men and a 5-year-old boy were killed and
another child injured in the massacre. The assailants also
kidnapped a woman before escaping.
Security forces immediately launched a manhunt.
Elsewhere, Algerian troops killed an alleged militant and
injured another during an offensive against an extremist group in
western Algeria.
The militant was shot near the village of Ammi Moussa, west of Algiers. Suspected extremists killed seven people there last weekend. The area is known as a stronghold of the Armed Islamic Group, known as GIA, Algeria's most radical insurgency movement. The GIA, like other rival rebel groups, want to see an Islamic government in Algeria. They reject President Abedelaziz Bouteflika's national reconciliation plan to end a lengthy civil war.
Algeria's decade-old Islamic insurgency has claimed an estimated 120 000 lives. The fighting broke out in 1992 after the army cancelled elections which a Muslim fundamentalist party were poised to win.
- Sapa-AP
- SAPA
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