DRUMBEAT OF DEATH

THE MASSACRES In the dead of night, young men carrying rifles, axes and knives sweep into a village or city neighborhood. After shooting the men, the assassins slit the throats of women and children, decapitate the victims and mount their heads on stakes outside. Then the attackers set the bodies ablaze and escape into the darkness.

WHY IS THIS HAPPENING? In 1991 the Islamic Salvation Front won the country's first free elections. The military voided the results, and ever since, the secular government and Islamic militants have been locked in a civil war that has so far claimed an estimated 60,000 lives.

WHO ARE THE KILLERS? Most of the butchery is blamed on the Armed Islamic Group, an extremist splinter faction. Islamists claim that to sabotage any compromise, hard-liners in the military-backed regime have supported some of the attacks. Unemployment topping 35% has helped produce nihilistic young thugs prepared to slaughter. Last week the Salvation Front declared a truce, but the killing is unlikely to end.

1992 In February the killing begins as Islamists, believing they were cheated out of power, attack soldiers and police. Clashes spread when the military responds with an iron fist.

1993 The Armed Islamic Group launches a terror campaign against officials, intellectuals, journalists and foreigners. Army reprisals increase. Thousands die.

1994 Every month the death toll rises in a vicious circle of Islamist assassinations and military retaliation. The government says terrorists have killed 6,388 this year.

1995 The killing rate climbs as terrorists start using car bombs and the army fights back with mass ambushes. Targeted murders give way to random butchery.

1996 By now people are dying every day: six on March 18, 18 on May 6, three on May 11, seven on May 21, seven on July 20, 12 on July 21, seven on July 28. In November, Islamists launch a bloody new campaign against innocent civilians, massacring villagers throughout the countryside by the scores: 31 in one village, 18 in another, 19 in a third. The five-year toll reaches into the tens of thousands.

1997 The massacres intensify to barbarous new levels in a countrywide reign of terror.

JANUARY 143 villagers are slaughtered in eight locales.

FEBRUARY-MARCH The army strikes back, killing 328 armed Islamists in five raids. Still, 33 of the town folk of Kerrach die in a February assault.

APRIL-JUNE At least 310 civilians are slain in 11 villages and parts of Algiers by night marauders, a train bomb, a cafe bomb, bus bombs and a movie-house bomb.

JULY No village or city is safe during seven days of rampage. In 11 massacres in Algiers and the countryside, 315 die: 51 in Algiers and Medea, 44 in Ksar al Boukhari, an additional 21 in Algiers, 47 in Blida, 38 more in Blida, 44 in Larba, 70 in suburbs just outside Algiers.

AUGUST The massacres grow more virulent, and so do the army's bloody attempts to quell them. The toll rises by 746: nearly 80 villagers are butchered on the 2nd, more than 100 on the 5th, 40 on the 10th, 15 on the 16th, nine on the 18th, 64 on the 22nd, 38 on the 24th, 100 on the 26th, up to 300 on the 29th in the worst killing spree yet.

SEPTEMBER Last week the slaughter of the innocents continued. As many as 200 villagers in Baraki were shot, stabbed, dismembered and burned on one evil night. Despite the declaration of a truce by the Islamic Salvation Front two days later, their radical rivals in the Armed Islamic Group, suspected of carrying out most of the massacres, showed no signs of giving up the campaign of blood.