THE PRISON OF BLOOD

By Jesse Birnbaum

The slaughter was swift and sure. After prisoners at Serkadji, Algiers' Alcatraz, used sharpened metal bed slats to slit the throats of four guards and attempted a mass escape, government security forces--the Ninjas, as they are called--swept into the prison. When they were done with their work, at least 96 inmates, most of them Muslim militants, lay dead.

Leaders of the Algerian government tersely explained that the wholesale bloodletting last week was necessary. ``When the security forces found out [about the murder of the guards],'' said a government official, ``they had no choice but to storm the building.'' Afterward Algerian television showed footage of pistols and grenades allegedly seized from the prisoners, suggesting they may have had help from other prison officials.

The prison massacre was the most deadly confrontation yet in what Western journalists have called Algeria's ``hidden war,'' the violent campaign begun three years ago by Islamist factions against the military-dominated government that they accuse of stealing their legitimate power. The events at Serkadji prove just how much the conflict has become a virtual civil war.

The grisly slashing of throats--the method of murder favored by Islamist militants--has instilled terror in the country's collective psyche. But Serkadji prison is also symbolic: it became infamous during the 1954-62 war of independence as the place where French forces tortured, imprisoned and guillotined Algerian guerrillas. Today it is where the government holds 1,000 of as many as 30,000 Islamists reportedly jailed around the country. One former inmate told TIME he had been held for six weeks of solitary confinement in a dark, rat-infested underground cell, tormented by two prison guards.

Since widespread Islamist violence and the government's repressive response have just about closed the country to outsiders, no one can gauge the full extent of Algeria's torment. Certainly there is little chance for a full investigation of the prison riot demanded by exiled leaders of the Islamic Salvation Front (F.I.S.). The bloodletting also makes it more difficult for Islamists who advocate a dialogue with the government. ``The military ruined the possibility of negotiations on purpose,'' said a source close to the F.I.S. leadership in Algiers.

Algerians who oppose a takeover by Islamic militants feel particularly vulnerable. ``The Islamists can kill anyone, anywhere, anytime,'' said one of the few remaining European residents of Algiers. Militants have stepped up their ambushes and assassinations. A suicide bombing on Jan. 30 killed 42 people and injured 256 outside police headquarters in downtown Algiers. In a well-planned attack, Islamists assassinated Colonel Djilali Meraou, a ranking member of Algerian military intelligence, and two bodyguards.

Recently, large numbers of performers, artists and intellectuals were marked for murder. Since the beginning of February, assassins have executed a prominent feminist leader, a popular singer, the director of the National Algerian Theater and the president of a university student union. In December, Said Mekbel, editor of the Algiers newspaper Le Matin, wrote that a journalist is someone ``who makes a wish not to die with his throat slashed.'' The day after he wrote that statement, Mekbel got his wish: his killers shot him in the head.

Diplomats say the death toll has climbed above 500 a week. To date, at least 30,000 Algerians have died, and guerrillas have burned down 600 schools and several universities. What remains of the rest of the country's infrastructure is badly crippled. Rebels destroy trains and tracks almost nightly. At least three key bridges in the Algiers regions were destroyed this month. The official Algerian Press Service claims sabotage operations caused more than $1 billion in damage last year.

With all Algeria caught in the grip of such random terror, peaceable residents are reduced to constant fear for their lives. More than 80% of the 75,000 resident foreigners have fled since extremists singled them out for assassination. France has shut down two consulates, and diplomats everywhere are keeping out of sight. Western governments that might be expected to help negotiate some kind of conciliation between the Algerian government and the radicals confess to total frustration. France, which once ruled Algeria, is worried that the spreading war will seep into neighboring Tunisia and Morocco and provoke a massive flight of refugees to Europe.

Anxious though Washington is, the Clinton Administration can offer only bromides. Says an official: ``This is very much an internal problem. We see neither violence nor terror as likely to restore sta- bility. There must be political dialogue.'' Before that unlikely event occurs, Algeria will continue to be a living--and murderous--hell.

--Reported by Bruce Crumley/Paris, Lara Marlowe/Beirut and Ann M. Simmons/ Washington

With reporting by BRUCE CRUMLEY/PARIS, LARA MARLOWE/BEIRUT AND ANN M. SIMMONS/WASHINGTON