ALGERIA: Suspected Islamic rebels killed eight people overnight in Algeria, the second massacre in the same province in six days, the official APS news agency said yesterday.
The killings occurred in the village of Boukaat Sidi Bouaissa in Chlef province, about 170 km west of Algiers, APS said.
It gave no details about the massacre, which took place six days after 21 civilians, including a three-month-old baby, were slaughtered in a rebel raid also in Chlef.
The latest deaths raised the number of Algerians who have perished in rebel attacks and army and police operations in the past nine months to more than 1,000.
The oil-and-gas-producing north African state has been racked by violence since early 1992 when the authorities cancelled the second round of parliamentary polls that radical Islamists were poised to win.
Some 100,000 people have been killed since then, according to the government, although independent sources estimate the death toll at up to 150,000.
Meanwhile, two Algerians accused of a 1995 bombing campaign in Paris which killed eight and wounded nearly 200 were sentenced to life imprisonment yesterday.
One of the condemned was also barred from obtaining parole for the first 22 years of his sentence, the maximum time without parole allowed by French law. - (Reuters)