A deadly and carefully planned series of bomb attacks in Algeria by an al-Qaeda affiliate may signal a new escalation in violence that many Algerians hoped had abated, experts say. Tuesday’s bombings flew in the face of the government’s bid to turn the page on a bloody Islamic insurgency that tore the nation apart in the 1990s.

When a fellow Moroccan asked Mohamed to drive him from Bilbao, Spain to Barcelona, Mohamed was happy to oblige. Two months later Mohamed was awakened by a heavy knock at his door. Police hauled him to Madrid, where he was accused of being an Islamic terrorist and of owning weapons.