GUNMEN killed 23 people and injured 21, including 10 seriously, at a fake roadblock near Medea in northern Algeria. Local people previously said that 19 people died and 26 were injured when a group of about 20 Islamic fundamentalists machine-gunned a bus on Wednesday after the driver refused to stop at the roadblock at Hamdania. The gunmen, wearing military uniforms, also fired on two private cars in the incident 80km south of the capital, stabbed some of victims with knives and set the bus ablaze before pushing it into a ravine. Algerian officials had by Thursday morning still issued no statement on the massacre, which took place on a major highway — generally kept under tight army surveillance.