Algeria's Long Night
Article Summary and Author Biography
One of the world's most underreported conflicts rages in Algeria, where 60,000 have died in six years of civil war. The military-backed regime, which has recently been accused of involvement in recurring massacres, has erected a facade of democracy and won the approval of France and the United States. Locked out is the Islamist movement, which scored an overwhelming victory in 1991 elections but was never allowed to take power. Other Arabs watch Algeria fearfully for omens of their countries' fates, caught between bad governments and political Islam.
Milton Viorst's foreign reporting has appeared in The New Yorker and elsewhere. This article is excerpted from his book In the Shadow of the Prophet: The Struggle for the Soul of Islam, to be published by Doubleday early next year.
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