Summary InformationH1>
1. Algerian newspapers have reported that 18 decapitated bodies have been found by authorities in the south of the country. 2. Police found the ``decapitated bodies of women, children and old men,with their heads thrown on a road'' near the town of Jelfa, 275 kilometers (170 miles) south of the capital Algiers. 3. In another incident on Wednesday, seven people -- including six children -- were killed by terrorists, Algerian security forces said. 4. Extremist Muslim militants were responsible for the slaughter of the seven people in the province of Medea, 120 kilometers (74 miles) south of Algiers. 5. The killers also kidnapped three girls during the same attack, authorities said, and one of the girls was found wounded on a nearby road. 6. Meanwhile, the Algerian daily Le Matin today quoted Interior Minister Abdul Malik Silal as saying that ``terrorism has not been eradicated, but the movement of the terrorists has significantly declined.'' 7. Algerian violence has claimed the lives of more than 70,000 people since the army cancelled the 1992 general elections that Islamic parties were likely to win. 8. Mainstream Islamic groups, most of which are banned in the country, insist their members are not responsible for the violence against civilians. 9. Some Muslim groups have blamed the army, while others accuse ``foreign elements conspiring against Algeria.��
1. Eighteen decapitated bodies have been found in a mass grave in northern Algeria, press reports said Thursday, adding that two shepherds were murdered earlier this week. 2. Security forces found the mass grave on Wednesday at Chbika, near Djelfa, 275 kilometers (170 miles) south of the capital. 3. It contained the bodies of people killed last year during a wedding ceremony, according to Le Quotidien Liberte. 4. The victims included women, children and old men. 5. Most of them had been decapitated and their heads thrown on a road, reported the Es Sahafa. 6. Another mass grave containing the bodies of around 10 people was discovered recently near Algiers, in the Eucalyptus district. 7. The two shepherds were killed Monday evening by a group of nine armed Islamists near the Moulay Slissen forest. 8. After being injured in a hail of automatic weapons fire, the pair were finished off with machete blows before being decapitated, Le Quotidien d'Oran reported. 9. Seven people, six of them children, were killed and two injured Wednesday by armed Islamists near Medea, 120 kilometers (75 miles) south of Algiers, security forces said. 10. The same day a parcel bomb explosion injured 17 people in Algiers itself. 11. Since early March, violence linked to armed Islamists has claimed more than 500 lives, according to press tallies.
ARTICLE 18854: ALGIERS, May 20 (UPI)
ARTICLE 18853: ALGIERS, May 20 (AFP)