There has been another massacre of civilians in Algeria, with the killing of 21 villagers.

Algerian newspapers said the attackers dismembered the victims' bodies with axes and set their homes ablaze before leaving unchallenged

The dead belonged to three families and included seven children.

The killings took place in Ouled Moussa, near Medea, about 80 kilometres south of the capital, Algiers.

A soldier burns clothes allegedly belonging to Islamic militants

No group has said it carried out the killings, but the military-backed government usually blames Islamic extremists.

The killings are the latest in series of massacres in the past two weeks in which more than 200 villagers perished.

Thousands more have died in similar grisly massacres this year.

Dozens of abducted civilians, mostly women, have been later killed and their corpses dumped on roadsides or into wells.

The authorities, which have been criticised for failing to prevent attacks on civilians, acknowledged they are unable to protect remote villages.

The news of more killings came after President Liamine Zeroual appointed 48 leading personalities to sit in the upper house, sealing his supporters' dominance of parliament.

The appointments complete a series of the constitutional changes introduced by the military-backed government designed to pull the country out of six years of violence.

More than 65,000 people have been killed in Algeria since early 1992 when the military-backed authorities cancelled general elections in which radical Islamists had taken a huge lead.

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