BBC News Online: World: Middle East

Amnesty calls for probe into Algeria killings.

The international human rights organisation, Amnesty International, has called for an independent investigation into recent massacres in Algeria.

In a report just released, Amnesty says violence in the civil war has taken a new and terrifying turn with the killing of thousands of civilians in the past year.

Amnesty says no impartial investigation has ever been held into the killings; torture and other abuses it says are being carried out by security forces, state-armed militias and armed groups which call themselves Islamic.

Amnesty says an international investigation is needed to establish who is responsible for the atrocities, and to point the way forward.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service