Despite history's repeated evidence to the contrary, it is never easy to believe the potential that human beings have to commit atrocities. When it is people you've known your whole life, families that have shared villages for generations, belief is even slower to flower. Let it be anybody else, you whisper, as if that would lessen the horror of finding a mutilated body in the morning. Let it be a stranger.

It's not until your childhood friend turns up at your door carrying the rifle he plans on using to kill you that you truly believe that anybody can be capable of anything. Ask the Bosnian Muslim, Serb, or Croatian what they thought of their chances for survival? Or how about the Rwandan when their neighbours picked up machetes and old tires?

Algeria, like other Muslim countries, in the late 1980s saw an upsurge in activity by fundamentalist Islamic groups. Primarily they were preparing themselves as a political force for the next round of elections so they could set about establishing an Islamic state like that in Iran. In 1988 "spontaneous" demonstrations across the country on their behalf turned into rioting and violence. When it looked like the fundamentalists were about to win the general election, the army annulled the election, outlawed the fundamentalists and arrested all of their leaders.

All of this did was turn them into terrorist groups who began a campaign of wanton destruction. In the cities this took the form of car bombs and random murders and kidnappings. Usually the targets of the attacks were those considered enemies of the movement - intellectuals, police officers, and artists. In the countryside it was a similar story, except the extremists would target towns.

For those trying just to live out their lives it was a horrible period of trying to retain vestiges of normalcy amid a period of unremitting terror. You didn't know who to trust; whom you could confide in, as it seemed that anybody who spoke out against the terrorists, no matter how privately would, end up dead.

The terrorists acted with the abandon of those who know that they can't be touched. In the small towns, people often knew who the members of the groups were; they were the same people who had been members of the groups when they were legal. But it was easier to find reasons to excuse the killings and violence than stand up to it. After all, they said, hadn't they, the fundamentalist been treated badly, and weren't they doing the work of God anyway?