ALGERIAN security forces said seven people had been killed at the weekend in Blida province, a stronghold of Muslim fundamentalists, bringing to 38 the number reported killed in two days in Algeria.
In a statement late on Sunday, Algerian security officials said the seven were "assassinated in a cowardly way" - their usual term for those killed by having their throats cut.
The statement, carried by the official Algerian news agency APS, did not say who killed the people early on Sunday in Larbaa district, Blida province, which lies about 50 km south of Algiers.
On Sunday also, the usually well informed Algerian newspaper El Watan said 31 people were killed, also in Blida province, on Friday night. That massacre was confirmed by a source close to the security forces, who said they believed the 31 belonged to five families all related to a dissident member of the Armed Islamic Group (GIA).
"He was Sid Ali Bouhdgar, who split from the GIA and had formed his own group," the source said from Algiers, suggesting the GIA carried out the attack.
The deaths of the seven people bring to more than 230 the number of those reported killed during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which started on January 10th. Days earlier, the GIA warned that it would step up attacks during the month.
On Friday, as Algeria mourned the assassination of its most powerful trade union leader, Mr Abdelhak Benhamouda, security forces said eight people had been killed in nearby Sidi Moussa early the previous day.
Algeria's conflict erupted in early 1992 when the authorities cancelled a general election in which the Islamic Salvation Front had taken a huge lead.
The latest killings have turned the spotlight on the shadowy groups blamed by Algerian authorities for many of the deaths.
The US State Department and Amnesty International have said that security forces carry out some of the killings in Algeria, but two groups dominate the conflict in which about 60,000 people have died.
The GIA, the most ruthless of the fundamentalist groups, is led by Antar Zouabri, who said in a statement last month: "There is no neutrality in the war we lead. Except for those who are with us, all the others are renegade."
The GIA claims responsibility for massacres in isolated communities and bombings in Algiers. Four of the five men who hijacked an Air France plane on Christmas Eve 1994 and were killed in Marseilles were GIA members, authorities say.
The group has also threatened foreigners with death if they stay in Algeria. In a newspaper interview, one unnamed GIA leader called foreigners "the main coronary artery" of a plan to "colonise" Algeria with non Muslims.
A key qualification for GIA leaders was that "they should experience armed operations and must demonstrate that they have killed significant numbers among God's enemies", he said.
Rivalling the GIA is the Islamic Salvation Army (AIS), which rapidly established itself early in the conflict and is the armed wing of the Islamic Salvation Front (FLS).
Its members drew their inspiration from FIS hardliners who opposed the party's taking part in the December 1991 general election.
Both the AIS and the FIS have distanced themselves from the indiscriminate killing of civilians.
A lesser known group, the Algerian Jihad Islamic Front (FIDA) last week claimed responsibility for killing the UGTA union leader, Mr Benhamouda.
The FIDA is believed to be the armed wing of the elitist Muslim fundamentalist group known as al Djazaraa.
A former GIA leader, Djamel Zitouni, killed last July, had ordered the elimination of FIDA members and leaders after and aborted unity attempt between the two factions in 1994.
Mohamed Said and Abderrazak Redjam, former leading figures in the FIS, were killed in 1995 along with some 15 FIDA members at the hands of GIA guerrillas.