Three battles won in war on terrorism

CAIRO, Egypt — A helicopter assault killed a man accused of sheltering al Qaeda in Pakistan. Algerian troops gunned down the head of a major militant group. In Saudi Arabia, police killed a figure linked to the beheading of American hostage Paul M. Johnson Jr.

Three counterterrorism victories in three countries over two days this month. Is it a sign that global cooperation to fight terrorism is finally taking off, or just a coincidence?

Experts say maybe a little bit of both.

Each of last week’s assaults on alleged terrorism figures carries the hallmark of bilateral cooperation between the governments and the United States. But, while officials may want to emulate the way radical Islamic militants have created an efficient international network, there’s little sign that’s happening now.

“I’m sure the authorities wish that this was some sort of coordinated success on multiple fronts, that they had that capability,” counterterrorism researcher Magnus Ranstorp said of the successes last week. “It is more accidental, but the coincidence provides the aura that we are getting better at finding terrorists.”

Muslim militants share tactics, training, money, weapons and extremist ideology. Cooperation among governments fighting the war on terrorism still is hampered by slow communications and bureaucratic hurdles.

Ranstorp, who is director of the Center for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at St. Andrews University in Scotland, and other experts dismissed the possibility of a coordinated campaign linking Algeria, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

Late Thursday last week along the Afghan border, Pakistan’s army launched a helicopter assault that killed Nek Mohammed, who was accused of sheltering al Qaeda fighters and had vowed to overthrow both the Pakistani and Afghan governments.

East of the Algerian capital late Thursday or early Friday, troops killed Nabil Sahraoui, head of the Salafist Group for Call and Combat. His was one of two groups that have been fighting since 1992 to replace Algeria’s military-backed government with an Islamic theocracy. Sahraoui had become allied with al Qaeda and broadened his focus to what militants see as a worldwide fight in defense of Islam.

Late Friday in the Saudi capital Riyadh, police gunned down Abdulaziz al-Moqrin, whose al Qaeda cell had just announced it had beheaded Johnson, an American helicopter engineer.

“We’ve said that in the case of Paul Marshall Johnson we were on excellent cooperation with the Saudis,” said U.S. Embassy spokesman Carol Kalin in Riyadh. “They have asked for our advice, and it was given and well received.”

That was all Kalin would say about whether U.S.-Saudi intelligence sharing may have led to al-Moqrin’s death.

Saudi officials backed off early reports that a citizen’s tip had led police to al-Moqrin.

The roadblock shootout that killed al-Moqrin came just a few hours after his cell posted on the Internet photos of Johnson’s severed head. That raised the possibility Internet communications had been traced.

“It’s possible,” said Evan Kohlmann, a Washington-based consultant on terrorism and security affairs. “But let’s also keep in mind that tracking Internet communications isn’t always as simple as we would like.”

Two weeks before the death of Algerian militant Sahraoui, Islamic militants killed a dozen Algerian soldiers. Algerian forces typically respond to such killings with massive sweeps, but the scale of the one that netted Sahraoui — 3,000 soldiers reportedly were involved — might indicate they had specific information about his whereabouts.

Ranstorp said Sahraoui’s killing shows a U.S. counter-terrorism training program in North Africa may be paying off.

The initiative provides Algeria and three other Sahara nations — Chad, Mali and Mauritania — with military training to help them stop terrorists from moving along ancient trade routes.