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Al-Ahram Weekly 27 July - 2 August 2000 Issue No. 492 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 27 July - 2 August 2000 Issue No. 492
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters New wave of terror
By Khaled DawoudAccording to Algerian press reports, 31 people, mostly civilians, were killed in separate attacks by suspected Islamist militants over the weekend, bringing the total number of victims of violence since the beginning of July to 250.
The series of murders, including several gruesome throat-slittings at fake police road blocks, represented a major setback for Algerian President Abdel-Aziz Bouteflika and his effort to restore calm after more than eight years of a blood-letting by armed Islamic militant groups.
In a manner characteristic of the crimes against Algerian civilians by members of the Armed Islamic Group (GIA), five people travelling in a truck had their throats slit at a fake checkpoint, situated on a small road close to the city of Mascara, 360 kilometres west of Algiers, reported a daily newspaper this Sunday.
In the district of Skikda, 500 kilometres east of the capital, three soldiers were killed early Friday and six others injured in an ambush by a group of armed militants. Four people, including one woman, meanwhile, had their throats slit in Djendel, located in the same region.
According to press reports on Saturday, four people, including a newly married couple, were killed and three others were wounded late Thursday at a fake roadblock near Larbaa, just south of Algiers.
An armed group wearing military uniforms stopped three cars and killed the passengers in the first two. Passengers in the third car however noticed that the "soldiers" were wearing non-regulatory red socks, and they managed to escape the trap -- a common terror tool of armed militants since violence erupted in 1992.
Meanwhile, a family of five was killed near Medea, some 90 kilometres south of Algiers by an armed group early on Thursday. The parents and their three children, aged between four and 11, had their throats slit and were then burnt as the group set fire to their house.
Also on Thursday a bomb explosion near Medea killed one person, while on Friday three armed civilians guarding their village were killed by two armed Islamists in front of a mosque near Sidi Bel-Abbes, 440 kilometres southwest of the capital.
Meanwhile, the same press reports said that six armed Islamists were killed by security forces in three separate incidents during the weekend.
The Algerian government, a year after launching an ambitious plan to end the brutal violence, has maintained official silence regarding the recent surge in violence perpetrated by militant groups which rejected Bouteflika's effort.
Algerian Army Chief of Staff General Mohamed Lamari, said in April that "terrorism has been overcome. Only banditry remains." But even before this sudden increase in violence, the death toll in Algeria's eight-year-old civil war has averaged more than 200 people per month since January, when a daring amnesty offer from Bouteflika expired.
President Bouteflika's initiative, launched just three months after he was elected in April 1999, had sent a wave of hope across the country, but now peace appears as elusive as ever in a crisis that has claimed more than 100,000 lives since 1992.
The spate of massacres has sparked fears that extremist militant groups such as GIA and the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) have reorganised.
Authorities, apparently unwilling to concede the failure of Bouteflika's "civil reconciliation" programme, have consistently blamed the violence on "gangsters" or "bandits."
Violence broke out in Algeria in early 1992 when the military stepped in to avert a clear victory by the country's largest political Islamic group, the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), in parliamentary elections. However, FIS announced a cease-fire in 1997 and officially renounced violence after Bouteflika came to power, supporting his civil reconciliation effort. A few thousand FIS members were released from prison as part of the reconciliation law, but local and international human rights groups say that thousands of others remain in prison.
Observers say that President Bouteflika had tried to avoid the issue of internal violence in recent months after clashing with senior officers in the influential military establishment. Thus, he focused on restoring Algeria's influence in the international scene, rebuilding his countries ties with Europe and the United States and using his former position as chairman of the Organisation of African Unity to mediate settlements in ongoing conflicts in Africa.
