New Algerian massacre

Security forces in Algeria say seventy-eight people have been killed in three separate attacks overnight in the western province of Relizane.

State radio described it as one of the bloodiest nights in Algeria's six-year-old civil conflict.

It said twenty-nine people were killed in the village of Ouled Sahine, twenty-one in Hrarba, and twenty-eight in Douar Ouled Tayeb.

Newspapers have reported the deaths of more than three-hundred civilians in the past nine days, often in savage attacks at roadblocks.

The government accuses Muslim fundamentalist rebels of responsibility, although human rights groups say the government is not without blame.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service