50 Marauders Massacre 87 in Algerian Town

BENI MESSOUS, Algeria —  Swinging hatchets and howling like jackals, attackers killed at least 87 people Friday night in a secluded neighborhood outside Algiers, kicking open doors to slit the throats of entire families, hospital sources and survivors said Saturday.

Residents banged on pots and pans and smashed stones together in a desperate attempt to summon help during the three-hour attack on an outlying neighborhood of the town of Beni Messous, 12 miles west of Algiers, late Friday and early Saturday.

“We heard victims screaming and cries for help, but no one came,” one of those who escaped said.

About 100 people were injured, officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said at Beni Messous and Algiers Maillot hospitals.

The roughly 50 marauders left only when government security forces arrived early Saturday. Although no one claimed responsibility for the massacre, it fit the pattern of deadly assaults by Islamic militants waging a 5-year-old insurgency against Algeria’s military regime. The attack was just one of many Friday in the bloodied nation--violence elsewhere killed 72 more people.

The Front for Socialist Forces said its members in the area put the death toll in the massacre at 151, and the Movement for a Peaceful Society, a moderate Islamic party, said it learned the death toll was 150.

The massacre was the deadliest since an Aug. 29 rampage in the village of Rais, south of Algiers, in which attackers killed up to 300 people.

The site of the attack, Beni Messous, is home to a military barracks, and there was no immediate explanation for why help did not come sooner.