Suspected insurgents killed 14 people in a brutal attack outside Algiers, trapping the victims at a fake roadblock, then killing them and burning their vehicles, journalists in the region said. The Thursday night attack occurred at Oued-Djerma in the Larbaa region some 30 kilometers (20 miles) southwest of the Algerian capital, according to the journalists. Attackers struck just hours after President Abdelaziz Bouteflika said that security had "largely been re-established" after more than a decade of violence in this North African nation. Bouteflika, marking the first anniversary on Friday of his re-election to office, said in a speech a day earlier that 150,000 people have been killed in the cycle of violence. Security has "largely been re-established everywhere across the country," Bouteflika said in his Thursday speech, laying out the effects of the violence, which he said has cost the nation US$30 billion in damages. Bouteflika vowed to make available US$55 billion over the next five years to help rebuild, saying that half would go to "improving the living conditions of the population."
