The commander of the western region of the Armed Islamic Group (GIA), and 46 other Islamic fighters have been killed by Algerian security forces in the last few days, La Tribune newspaper reported yesterday. Elsewhere Algerian newspapers reported that another nine civilians had been killed in the ongoing bloody uprising by Islamic militants against the Algiers government.
The UN Secretary General on Saturday told a news conference that words of condemnation would not be enough. "It will be necessary to go beyond that, quietly and discreetly," he said. "I hope we will find ways and means of encouraging the parties to cease violence."
"The killing has gone on far too long," said Mr Kofi Annan, who was attending the Venice film festival where a UN film, Footnotes to a War, was on show.
The Algerian government reacted angrily to Mr Annan for his remarks, accusing him of interfering in Algeria's internal affairs.
The Algerian foreign ministry said it had asked its delegation to the UN "to start an immediate representation" over the comments on Saturday, according to the state news agency APS.
Meanwhile the director general of UNESCO, Mr Federico Mayor, called for a worldwide condemnation of the violence.
La Tribune said Mustapha Akkal, who had a bounty of three million Algerian dinars ($49,000) on his head, was killed with three of his men in an ambush between Tafessour and Ouala. There has been no official confirmation of the report.
On Sunday La Liberte reported that 43 armed Islamists had been killed in the past few days by security forces at Blida, south of Algiers and Sidi Bel Abbes, southwest of Algiers.
Details given in the report were that at Blida, the site of a massacre on Wednesday of 63 people, the army had launched a follow-up operation which had resulted in 18 armed Islamists being killed.
And at Sidi Bel Abbes a combined forces search operation had led to 25 Islamic guerrillas being killed.
Civilian death tolls continue to mount with two people dying in the blasts of three home-made bombs in Tlemcen, west of Algiers on Saturday. Many others were wounded.
The bodies of six young shepherds were found with their throats cut in the Tiaret region, south-west of Algiers, in a massacre which had the hallmarks of being carried out by the Islamic militants. At Ain Defla, in the same area, one person was murdered in an attack attributed to extremists.
The latest reports come after a week when the worst bloody atrocity in Algeria's five-year civil war. Official figures say that 98 people had their throats slit or were burned alive, at Rais, near Algiers, although unofficial figures put the figure much higher at between 200 and 300 dead. During the same evening 40 people were killed at Maalba south-west of Algiers and five others in an outlying suburb Algiers.
Pope John Paul yesterday attacked massacres in Algeria as an "unjustifiable spiral of violence" and prayed for a return to peace.
The Pope said he was greatly perturbed by "such ferocious barbarity" and prayed for the victims.
The leader of Algeria's banned Islamic Salvation Front has called for an immediate halt to the bloodshed as a preliminary step towards dialogue with the authorities. In a brief letter to the UN Secretary General Mr Abassi Madani said: "In respect to your appeal on Algerians for dialogue and reconciliation. . . I am ready to call for an immediate halt to bloodshed."
Hundreds of people fled from their homes in panic from two Algiers suburbs on Saturday night after gunshots led them to believe they were being attacked by Islamic militants.
Mr Madani, who is in Algiers, said his appeal would be "a preliminary step for a serious dialogue. . . to find a happy end to the crisis".
The letter written in classical Arabic was signed by his son Abbas Salman in the name of his father. It had no FIS stamp and could not immediately be authenticated.
The FIS leader was recently released from prison where he spent six years.