Only days ago, the President of Algeria, Gen Liamine Zeroual, repeated the oft-heard contention that the government is fighting "residual terrorism" and that "the terrorists are on their last legs".
The massacre of up to 300 villagers at Sidi Moussa, on the outskirts of Algiers, yesterday morning has shown yet again the absurdity of such statements, which, some Algerians believe, merely provoke the "Islamist" guerrillas to commit further atrocities.
The Armed Islamic Group (GIA) is held responsible for most of the killings, but they have offered no explanation for the throat-slashings, beheadings and mutilations other than to say they will kill all "infidels", and that if by mistake they kill good Muslims, God will recognise them as martyrs.
A survivor of the massacre of 64 people in the village of Beni-Ali earlier this week told the Algerian newspaper, El Khabar, that "the group came down from the mountain howling like jackals. They cut the electricity and then they chopped people's heads off and put them in front of their doorways".
The Algerian newspaper, Le Matin, reported this week that a new movement known as El Ghadiboun ala Allah (those who have revolted against God) has split off from the GIA.
Members of the group reportedly cut off their right index finger, used in Muslim ceremony, and target pregnant women because they don't want them to give birth to Muslim infants.
According to Le Matin, these killers have turned against God because he has not enabled them to take power in Algeria.
In the absence of any explanation from their own government, Algerians speculate that the authorities allow the massacres to take place because it is easier for them to fight the guerrillas in a depopulated area.
Others claim the killings are the result of vendettas between Islamist groups, so the government lets them kill one another.
Another possibility is that negotiations between the banned Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) - which won the first round of parliamentary elections in December 1991 - and the government have angered extremist factions both in the military and among the fundamentalists, who hope to sabotage any progress towards a settlement through bloodshed.
This would appeal to logic, except that there is very little evidence of government talks with the FIS, other than the recent liberation of two leading sheiks.
In the wake of yesterday's slaughter at Sidi Moussa, opposition political parties are demanding to know why the government does not protect its own people. Hamas, a legal Islamist party, last night called for a special session of parliament and asked that the government cease using the term "residual terrorism".
"It's impossible to describe the feeling of helplessness before such horror," Dr Ahmed Djeddai, the first secretary of another opposition party, the Front of Socialist Forces (FFS), told The Irish Times.
"The Algerian authorities never stop trying to hide the situation," Dr Djeddai said. "In a normal country, the government would be forced to resign. People see no exit to the crisis. They have lost hope. They suffer in silence, and they die in silence."