Insurgency Marks 6th Anniversary

The Muslim insurgency here marks its sixth anniversary today, its death toll at 75,000 and climbing after 41 peasants were killed in the latest assaults on isolated villages. Some Algerian media reports put the dead at 55 in the three latest attacks, but the figure could not be immediately confirmed. More than 1,000 villagers have been hacked, slashed and shot to death in a wave of massacres since Dec. 30, the beginning of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Violence has intensified every year around Ramadan and the anniversary.