Algeria’s School Bells Ring Under Tight Security In The Wake Of Muslim Insurgents’ Violence, Police On Guard As Children Go Back To Class

Police were posted at the entrances of many schools Tuesday to assure a safe return to classes for Algeria’s 7.5 million children, whose summer vacation ended following a new spate of killings.

State-run television, which devoted most of its midday newscast to the reopening of schools, portrayed the day as normal. But in several schools around Algiers, the capital, police checked book bags as children entered the buildings.

On the outskirts of the capital, more than 100 people reportedly were slain last week by Muslim insurgents. Self-defense groups, armed with hatchets and iron bars, mounted overnight patrols.

Police cars searched the capital, which has been gripped by fear since a Friday night massacre in the western suburb of Sidi Messous. Up to 87 people were killed, and armed bands reportedly returned twice, killing more than 40 additional people.

The attacks were the bloodiest in or near Algiers since the start of the Muslim insurgency, which was triggered by the cancellation of 1992 elections that the Islamic Salvation Front was poised to win. The Front was later banned.

More than 60,000 people have been killed in the insurgency.

The Islamic Salvation Front, in a statement issued Tuesday from Germany, accused the government of complicity in the latest attacks, and called on the people to stand fast and defend themselves rather than join those who flee massacre sites.

“Dramas, deaths and exodus serve as a pretext for those plotting against our religion, our nation and our land,” said the statement, received at the Paris bureau of The Associated Press.

The Islamic militants seek to establish a government based on a strict interpretation of Koranic law, which would require women to cover their heads, ban alcohol and institute compulsory Koranic education.

Such a system is anathema to many secular Algerians who subscribe to Western ways, learned during the French colonial period that lasted more than 130 years and ended in 1962.