Eleven people, including five children, were killed in Algeria in separate attacks attributed to Islamic extremists, said press reports.
Islamic militants were reported to have killed seven shepherds by slitting their throats, said the BBC.online.
The attack was reported to have occurred in a village in the Oued Romane mountains west of the capital Algiers, said the news service.
It is believed the shepherds had no weapons and were attacked for straying too close to a forest hideout used by the militants, said the news service.
The mountainous region is often the scene of grisly attacks on civilians by fundamentalists from the Armed Islamic Group (GIA), whose members are fighting against the secular state.
The attack, some 30 kilometers south of the coastal town of Tenes, follows a raid in late January when two families of 25 members had their throats cut by the GIA rebels near the city of Chlef, 220 kilometers west of Algiers, the BBC added.
Also on Thursday, five armed men slit the throats of two people at a car market at Tijelabin near Bourmerdes, about 50 kilometers east of Algiers, said AFP.
Another attack on the same day claimed the lives of two people and seriously wounded another, said the agency.
The attack took place in the village of Khebaza near Ain Defla, about 160 kilometers west of Algiers.
Last year, at least 2,700 people lost their lives in the conflict, which has raged for nine years.
The GIA, which has stepped up its insurgency after several months of relative calm, has rejected peace overtures from President Abdelaziz Bouteflika and vowed to pursue fighting.
Bouteflika threatened last month to fight militants who refuse to support his policy of nationwide reconciliation "with an iron fist."
The civil war broke out in 1992 after the army-backed authorities cancelled an election part of the way through, which the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) was poised to win -- Albawaba.com
