ALGIERS, Algeria - Police rolled out in force in Algeria's bomb-shaken capital Thursday, establishing highway checkpoints after suicide attacks claimed by al-Qaida killed 24 people, highlighting the menacing spread of Islamic militancy across North Africa.
The reinforced surveillance was reminiscent of the height of Algeria's Islamic insurgency in the 1990s. Some 222 people were injured in Wednesday's attacks, and authorities said the death toll from the car bombings of the prime minister's office and a police station could rise.
Meanwhile, Western countries reduced embassy services and urged their citizens to avoid traveling on predictable routes in the oil- and gas-rich country.
Wednesday's bombings lent credence to fears that al-Qaida's new wing in North Africa - built on the foundations of a decade-old Algerian insurgency group fighting the nation's secular government - is coalescing into a deadly, possibly region-wide, threat......
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