On Sunday morning, shortly after the students were machine-gunned, another group of extremists opened fire on a civilian bus killing 15 and wounding others. The bus had stopped at a fake roadblock set up by the extremists near the city of Tenes. An hour after this attack, five civilians were murdered in the city of Khamis Melyana. That strike was in retaliation for the deadly ambush of nine government soldiers in the same region. About 100,000 people have been killed by Muslim extremists since 1992, when Algerian authorities called off the general elections the fundamentalist Islamic Salvation Front were poised to win.
Women are at risk for particular terrors in Algeria's uncivil war.
During some of the largest massacres they have been raped and mutilated by extremists before being slaughtered. The government is less than supportive, having joined a coalition with the Vatican, Iran, Nicaragua, Syria, Libya, Morocco and Pakistan to destroy women's reproductive rights gains outlined in the Beijing Platform for Action. Queers are also targeted by both sides. In January 1997 a gay Algerian AIDS and human rights activist identified only as L. Favsal won political asylum in France because in Algeria, where homosexuality is an illegal, jailable offense, he was frequently beaten and arrested by Algerian police and was chased and threatened with death by Muslim civilians. About 1,500 militants turned themselves in, but violence hasn't diminished.