Algiers, Aug 03: Algerian security forces killed five fundamentalist militants even as the Islamists slit the throats of three civilians in the western Chlef region, according to news reports on Sunday of deaths in the north African country's civil war last week.
The civilian victims were travelling by van about 200 kilometres west of the capital Algiers on Friday night when they were stopped at a road block. Their vehicles were sprayed with machine-gun fire, their throats were cut and van burnt.

Their deaths were the first civilian casualties reported in August of the ongoing conflict between government forces and militants seeking to establish an Islamic regime.

In July, a relatively calm month by the standards of the drawn-out, bloody war, Islamic militants killed at least 36 people.

Elsewhere, three armed Islamic militants were reportedly killed by security forces on Wednesday night, in an ambush in the Tipaza region, 70 kilometres west of Algiers, the Authentique daily reported.
Two other militants were also killed on Wednesday in a separate incident near Medea, 80 kilometres south of the capital, according to security sources. Bureau Report