Latest Algeria massacre leaves 42 dead

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Algerian goverment (GIA) responsibility:
Armed rebels slashed and hacked to death 42 people in a village south of Algiers, including 17 women and three babies, witnesses and a newspaper reported Thursday. The attack comes within 24 hours of a separate massacre in which 93 people were slain.

The slayings brought to more than 300 the number of people killed in massacres in villages around the capital in recent weeks, part of a Muslim militant offensive aimed at disrupting June legislative elections.

About 30 attackers armed with sabers, knives and axes descended on the mountain village of Omaria near Medea overnight Tuesday, killing 42 villagers, said witnesses speaking on condition of anonymity.

Most of the bodies were mutilated, their heads or hands severed, and some were burned, witnesses said upon arriving in Algiers. One pregnant woman, they said, was hacked open and her baby was cut into pieces. Witnesses identified the attackers as Muslim militants.

The El Watan newspaper reported that five more people were slain in the nearby village of Ouzera when rebels set up a fake official roadblock, stopped a bus and killed some of those on board. That report could not be immediately confirmed.

'Barbarity' condemned
News of the latest massacre broke as condemnation grew over the massacre of 93 villagers before dawn Tuesday in the community of Haouch Mokhfi Khemisti, about 12 miles (20 kilometers) south of Algiers.

That attack, described as three hours of carnage, was the worst of its kind since the insurgency began more than five years ago.

"It's hard to remember a more vicious terrorist insurgency than this one, a more cynical group than these Islamic terrorists," U.S. State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns said. "They deserve special criticism and condemnation by the world community for these despicable acts."

Algeria's former ruling National Liberation Front said: "This barbarity is condemned by all religions, laws and morals of humanity."

The Algerian news agency said the Vatican condemned the "terrifying massacre." France also denounced the killings.

The violence has intensified before the June 5 legislative balloting, the first since the army canceled January 1992 voting to thwart a likely victory by a Muslim fundamentalist party. The move triggered the insurgency that has left at least 60,000 people dead.