A new wave of killing has put Algeria's President Abdelaziz Bouteflika under pressure to deliver quickly on pledges to restore peace to the country, analysts and commentators said yesterday.
Mr Bouteflika has offered Muslim guerrillas a partial or total amnesty if they surrender under a peace deal, backed by parliament in June, reached with the relatively moderate Islamic Salvation Army (AIS) rebel faction.
The president, whose legitimacy was undermined when the presidential poll turned into a one-man race in April over charges of cheating, is putting the peace deal to a referendum on September 16th to try to gain maximum support from the north African country's 29 million people.
A massive positive vote would be seen as sidelining radical opponents to his peace drive who include not only guerrillas.
Analysts say that beside members of the extreme Armed Islamic Group (GIA), Mr Bouteflika is opposed by hardliners among the military and their backers in the secular political camp. These groups believe the only way is to crush the rebels militarily.
Mr Mouheiddine Amimour, a respected intellectual and member of Algeria's parliament, said the rebels had stepped up attacks to try to sink Mr Bouteflika's bid for reconciliation.
"The increased violence is clearly linked to the approaching referendum on peace. They [rebels] want to scuttle the president's peace approach. They are aware that the people will vote massively for it in the referendum," he declared. Mr Amimour, in a clear reference to a hardline faction in the military and their backers, said "other players" did not want the president to succeed. "Some quarters and players are against the policy of national harmony because it does not serve their interests."
The recent violence appears to be a bloody race by guerrillas against those pushing for peace, with the aim of showing that the referendum will be a vote on a hollow pact.
Government ministers and Mr Bouteflika's supporters are holding rallies to promote support for the peace deal. They hammer home one message: "It is impossible for the country to continue on the path of confrontation."
Pushing their own message, killers cut the throats of 29 civilians on Sunday, adding to the more than 50 people murdered in the past two weeks in bomb and other attacks.
Mr Bouteflika has said that 100,000 people have died in seven years of violence which erupted when the authorities, in 1992, cancelled a general election dominated by Islamic fundamentalists. He has forecast that the death toll will double in the years ahead if his peace plan fails.
"What credit can be given to Bouteflika's peace undertakings while dozens of Algerians are killed each day?" asked Le Matin newspaper in a commentary yesterday on the massacre of the 29 at a fake road block in the usually peaceful Bechar province, some 500 miles south-west of Algiers.
Algeria's Liberte newspaper, joining the sceptics, said the "statistics of death" contradicted Mr Bouteflika's recent claims that the security situation had been improving steadily since he took over from President Liamine Zeroual in April.
"How many barbaric attacks should we count before peace prevails again . . . Not a single day passes without counting new killings. When will this will end?" asked Liberte.
Ms Salima Tlemceni, a commentator with the El Watan daily which is widely seen as the best informed on Algerian security issues, said rebels appeared to be taking advantage of an easing of security.
Mr Jamel Farjallah, another Algerian political analyst, said he suspected that some of the thousands of Muslim militant prisoners released from jails after being pardoned by Mr Bouteflika early in July might have joined the rebels. "It could be an explanation for the increased violence in the past weeks," he said.