Sleeping children massacred by village raiders

Two dozen sleeping people, including 16 children, were massacred when an armed group broke into two homes in an isolated Algerian village, security sources said today.

It was the deadliest attack so far this year in an Islamic insurgency that has left tens of thousands dead.

The attack was shortly before midnight on Saturday in the hamlet of Oued Fares in the Chlef region, some 130 miles west of the Algerian capital, Algiers.

The armed men broke into two homes, surprised their victims in their sleep and slit their throats, according to the sources. Eleven people lived in one of the homes and 13 in the other.

Nearly 150 people have been killed since the start of January in a resurgence of violence that took hold during the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, which ended near the close of December.

Most of the January violence has occurred west of Algiers, around Chlef and Ain Defla, some 85 miles from the capital, as well as around Medea, about 60 miles to the south.

More than 100,000 people have been killed since the start of the insurgency, now in its ninth year.