MUSLIM guerrillas disguised as policemen massacred 63 people, including children, women and old men, in Algeria, the London based Arabic newspaper al Hayat said yesterday. In a similar incident last week, 17 men were reported to have been killed.
Witnesses told the newspaper that about 100 gunmen set up a fake roadblock on Saturday and stopped two buses on the road that connects the provinces of M'Sila and Batna, south east of the capital, Algiers.
The gunmen, armed with shotguns, knives and axes and wearing "dirty uniforms", cut the throats of all those holding Batna identity papers, said the witnesses, who were on one of the buses. Al Haya quoted its sources as saying that the aim of the massacre was to "create tribal strife".
Civilians have been targeted in several attacks on Algeria's roads in the past months but, if confirmed, Saturday's killings would be the worst since violence erupted in the country in January 1992 after the cancellation of elections which the banned Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) was poised to win.
The attack was claimed by the Armed Islamic Group (GIA), which has threatened to kill all "enemies" and "blasphemers".
Two other incidents were reported on Sunday by the Algerian newspaper el Watan. It said Muslim guerrillas had killed 15 men by cutting their throats in separate attacks.
A group of about 10 Muslim rebels armed with shotguns, knives and hatchets forced a passenger bus to stop at a fake road block they set up at Sidi Laadjal village, 300km south of Algiers, last Thursday night, el Watan said. They picked 17 men aged between 17 and 25 after checking the identity cards of the passengers, shepherded them into nearby bush and cut their throats, the newspaper said.
In a separate attack, two men slit the throat of a muezzin inside his mosque in the suburb of Birkhadem south of Algiers as he was preparing to call for the evening prayer on Thursday night, said el Watan.
About 50,000 people have been killed in the struggle between Algeria's Muslim guerrillas and the army backed government since early 1992.