Militants attacked two more villages south of Algiers, slashing and hacking to death 47 people in the latest massacres blamed on a Muslim insurgency, witnesses and a newspaper reported Thursday.
The slayings brought to about 420 the number of people killed in massacres in villages around the capital in the past month in a terror campaign before June legislative elections. The rebels appear to target villagers who have refused to join the insurgency or who support government-backed militias.About 30 attackers armed with sabers, knives and axes descended on the mountain village of Omaria, 50 miles south of Algiers, killing 42 people late Tuesday and early Wednesday, the witnesses said on condition of anonymity.
Among the dead were 17 women and three babies, they said, identifying the attackers as Muslim militants.
Witnesses interviewed upon arriving in Algiers said most of the bodies were mutilated, their heads or hands severed, and some were burned.
In the nearby village of Ouzera, attackers stopped a bus the same night and killed five of those aboard, said the independent newspaper El Watan. That report could not be independently confirmed.
The new slayings followed the massacre of 93 villagers before dawn Tuesday in the town of Haouch Mokhfi Khemisti, about 12 miles south of Algiers.