/ 28 December 2000

SUSPECTED ISLAMISTS KILL ALGERIAN SINGER

SUSPECTED Muslim fundamentalists clad in military uniforms slit the throat of a young Algerian cabaret singer and kidnapped six people from a discotheque where she was performing, the press reported. The singer known as Sihem, 24, was thrown to the ground by two of the attackers who on Friday stormed the nightclub at Berrahal, where she worked in the evenings of the holy fasting month of Ramadan, witnesses said. They cut her throat with a sword. A score of aggressors wearing the uniforms of the army, police and customs officers took part in the attack, in which 13 clients were badly beaten up or injured when they jumped from the second-floor windows of the discotheque. Survivors said six people were abducted.