Word: algerians
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...grisly slashing of throats--the method of murder favored by Islamist militants--has instilled terror in the country's collective psyche. But Serkadji prison is also symbolic: it became infamous during the 1954-62 war of independence as the place where French forces tortured, imprisoned and guillotined Algerian guerrillas. Today it is where the government holds 1,000 of as many as 30,000 Islamists reportedly jailed around the country. One former inmate told TIME he had been held for six weeks of solitary confinement in a dark, rat-infested underground cell, tormented by two prison guards...
...Algerians who oppose a takeover by Islamic militants feel particularly vulnerable. ``The Islamists can kill anyone, anywhere, anytime,'' said one of the few remaining European residents of Algiers. Militants have stepped up their ambushes and assassinations. A suicide bombing on Jan. 30 killed 42 people and injured 256 outside police headquarters in downtown Algiers. In a well-planned attack, Islamists assassinated Colonel Djilali Meraou, a ranking member of Algerian military intelligence, and two bodyguards...
Recently, large numbers of performers, artists and intellectuals were marked for murder. Since the beginning of February, assassins have executed a prominent feminist leader, a popular singer, the director of the National Algerian Theater and the president of a university student union. In December, Said Mekbel, editor of the Algiers newspaper Le Matin, wrote that a journalist is someone ``who makes a wish not to die with his throat slashed.'' The day after he wrote that statement, Mekbel got his wish: his killers shot him in the head...
Diplomats say the death toll has climbed above 500 a week. To date, at least 30,000 Algerians have died, and guerrillas have burned down 600 schools and several universities. What remains of the rest of the country's infrastructure is badly crippled. Rebels destroy trains and tracks almost nightly. At least three key bridges in the Algiers regions were destroyed this month. The official Algerian Press Service claims sabotage operations caused more than $1 billion in damage last year...
...their lives. More than 80% of the 75,000 resident foreigners have fled since extremists singled them out for assassination. France has shut down two consulates, and diplomats everywhere are keeping out of sight. Western governments that might be expected to help negotiate some kind of conciliation between the Algerian government and the radicals confess to total frustration. France, which once ruled Algeria, is worried that the spreading war will seep into neighboring Tunisia and Morocco and provoke a massive flight of refugees to Europe...