Militants Kill 17 Bus Passengers On Road in Algeria, Report Says
April 30, 2011
ALGIERS, Algeria -- Armed militants erected a fake police barrier to stop a bus on a remote highway, then slit the throats of 17 passengers, a newspaper reported Sunday. The independent daily El Watan said the slaughter happened Thursday on a highway outside Ain Oussera, about 90 miles south of Algiers. Authorities would neither confirm nor deny the report. If verified, it would be one of the worst mass killings this year in the North African nation bloodied by a four-year Islamic insurgency. Witnesses told the newspaper that the gunmen set up a fake barricade on the highway to make the bus stop. The victims, ages 17 to 25, were forced to get off the bus at gunpoint and were killed behind a large roadside Vern, the newspaper said. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. The Armed Islamic Group -- the most violent of several militant factions trying to topple the Algerian government and install strict Islamic rule -- has been blamed for most past attacks on civilians. Throat-slitting and decapitation are considered signature killing styles of the group, which in May beheaded seven French monks after holding them for nearly two months. Algeria's insurgency began in January 1992, when the army-backed government abruptly canceled legislative elections that Islamic fundamentalist candidates were poised to win. More than 60,000 people have been killed.
