Algeria-Watch's timeline describes them as strange guerrillas with shaven heads and eyebrows, carrying flags emblazoned "al-ghadhibun 'ala Allah" (Angry at God).
The groups would storm the houses of these towns and would kill men, women, children, cows, goats, and donkeys.
The people in the villages who would try to flee would be shot down or brutally attacked with a knife or ax, as was later observed on the corpses by investigators of the massacre.
[3] After having had countless guides, both groups eventually meet up in Oued El-Had and continue their plan to kill all citizens.
Abed Charef came to his conclusion that another “new uncontrolled group had appeared in the region”[5] and was thus responsible for the massacre.