A FATHER and five children were massacred by an armed group near Tiaret in northwestern Algeria, local residents said on Tuesday. The home of the family of eight in the hamlet of Ziana near the town of Oued Lili, some 340km west of Algiers, was attacked overnight on Monday, the sources said. The assailants shot dead the father and five of the six children while wounding the mother before torching the house, they said, adding that the sixth child, a girl, was kidnapped. The charred bodies of the dead were found in the remains of the house, while the mother, who suffered third-degree burns, managed to reach a hospital in Tiaret, some 30km away, where she was in intensive care, the sources said. Fighters of the hardline Armed Islamic Group (GIA) are active in the area. – AFP