BLOODY attacks attributed to armed Islamic militants in Algeria multiplied last week, with local media reporting nearly 40 killings, as fears of a resurgence in violence haunted the country. Most of the attacks took place in the Mitidja region, the fertile agricultural plain near the capital and former stronghold of the Armed Islamic Group (GIA). It was in this region that the most savage killings of civilians thought to be committed by armed Islamist groups have occurred since 1992, when the cancellation of general elections which the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) looked set to win led to a Muslim fundamentalist insurrection. The movement has since escalated into a civil war, with some 100 000 lives lost. Driven from the region by Algerian security forces, GIA militants, fiercely opposed to President Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s policy of national reconciliation, could be regrouping in the region’s so-called “triangle of death”, signalling a new wave of civilian massacres, press reports said. – AFP