Thirty-five civilians were killed in Algerian attacks at the weekend as government troops hunted the killers of more than 400 villagers slaughtered in massacres last week, Algiers newspapers said yesterday. Meanwhile, the Algerian Interior Minister, Mr Mustapha Benmansour, at a meeting in Tunis, called for more Arab cooperation to combat terrorism.
Crack military units, backed by police and paramilitary forces, yesterday swept through Remka forest and Ouarsenis mountain in western Algeria, tracking the suspected perpetrators of the massacre of 412 people in the Relizane area last Tuesday night. The Le Matin newspaper said the killers belonged to the Armed Islamic Group (GIA), the Algerian faction which the government has blamed for most massacres of civilians in the past two years.
In Tunis Mr Benmansour said: "We must more than ever mobilise our forces and capacity and unify our efforts to establish greater co-operation to combat this calamity and master it in all its forms." He claimed the situation would not have developed without the leniency of unnamed countries who, he charged, did not wish "to see our Arab world stabilise".
The meeting, of 20 Arab interior ministers, approved an accord to boost their co-operation to fight terrorism. Algiers has until now rejected outside "interference" in its internal affairs.
France yesterday gave its support to a German proposal that the European Union should take an initiative to try to end the killings. In a reversal of policy, Paris also criticised the Algiers government, urging it to do more to prevent massacres.
"It is every government's duty to enable its citizens to live in peace and safety by putting an end to violence," a Foreign Ministry spokesman said. Le Matin said the GIA leader, Mr Antar Zouabri, could be among the men being tracked from last week's attacks, adding that some rebels had already been killed.
No group claimed responsibility for the massacres in hamlets in Relizane province in which 412 people were slaughtered in one night, according to the Algerian Liberte newspaper. The government put the death toll at 78.
Meanwhile, Algerian authorities, following a pattern seen after massacres elsewhere, handed out weapons to villagers in the massacre-stricken hamlets in Relizane province.
The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Andrews, has expressed the Government's grave concern about reports of recent killings in Algeria. He has sent an urgent message to the Algerian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Ahmed Attaf, whom he met last month. "In the light of this weekend's shocking events, we will be raising the matter again with the EU," Mr Andrews said yesterday in a statement.