ALGIERS (Reuters) — A spate of militant activity including a rare clash in Tunisia is testing counter-terrorism efforts across north Africa, a region prized by al Qaeda as a potential launch pad for fresh attacks on European capitals.Maghreb states are expected to step up security cooperation after violence in Algeria and Tunisia and arrests in Morocco raised fears that a loose coalition of groups is taking shape with new fighters battle-hardened in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Two gunbattles in the last month in normally placid Tunisia are the most eye-catching development, according to analysts who track al Qaeda’s attempt to strengthen its network in the Maghreb and communities of north African descent in Europe. A total of 14 gunmen were killed in clashes with security forces in and around Tunis on December 23 and January 3, rare serious breaches of security in a tightly governed country most Europeans know only as a sleepy holiday destination.

Authorities said the unrest involved “dangerous criminals”. But private Echorouk newspaper said the gunmen, all Tunisians apart from a Mauritanian, were Islamists who had infiltrated from Algeria. Tunisian senator Emna Soula told France 24 television: “The Salafist trail is being seriously studied.” “The incident in Tunisia will push the governments in the region to step up cooperation,” said Moroccan analyst Mohamed Darif, adding the region’s militants were now working together under the same strict Salafist ideology espoused by al Qaeda.

“Before, each government believed it was immune against the Salafist threat, leaving Algeria fighting alone its war against radical Islamists,” he said, referring to conflict between Algerian Islamists and security forces that began in 1992.

“This time, they may create security cooperation bodies to make their cooperation ... against Salafists more effective.”

Counter-terror cooperation has not always come easily to the security-minded administrations on the southern shores of the Mediterranean, which seek firm control over their societies and abhor anything that could be construed as external interference. But signs of cross-border coordination among the region’s militant groups, who have provided a steady flow of volunteers to fight Western forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, demands a regional response based on teamwork, experts say.

“They know they face a common threat. ... They know that they have no choice in this issue,” said Claude Moniquet of the European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center in Brussels.

In late December Algerian newspapers reported Algerian security forces had arrested two Tunisians “belonging to an international terrorist network”. In Algeria a bomb exploded beside a bus carrying foreign oil workers on December 10 in an upscale Algiers suburb, killing two people in the first attack on expatriates in years.

The attack was claimed by the Algeria-based Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), which security officials suspect is attracting growing numbers of radical Islamists in the region and providing them with military training.

On October 30, three people were killed in near-simultaneous truck bomb attacks on two Algerian police stations, in the most elaborate assault by GSPC rebels in several years.

On January 4, the Moroccan government said its security forces had dismantled a radical Islamist cell recruiting volunteers to fight in Iraq and arrested 26 people. Morocco, a staunch US ally, says it has broken up more than 50 militant Islamist cells since suicide bombings in the country’s financial capital, Casablanca, in 2003.

Experts say the region, from Mauritania to Libya, is attractive to al Qaeda because its proximity to Europe makes it a logistics and transportation hub and gives access to the large north African Islamist communities in European cities.

“The jihad in Iraq seems to be a very successful story for al Qaeda ... but (for Europe) it’s quite far away. If you launch a jihad in the Maghreb, it’s just the other side of the street for Europe, so (for militants) this makes sense,” said Moniquet.

Experts suspect the GSPC has downgraded its original goal of toppling the state in favour of targeting Westerners and publicising its actions by using its growing Internet skills.

Olivier Roy, an expert on militant Islamism at the French National Center for Scientific Research, said armed militant groups in Algeria and Morocco were unlikely to be able to “take the lead” in challenging state power because there were other political forces at work in those countries.

“The unknown is Tunisia. In Tunisia clearly the government has been able to create a political vacuum, which is not the case in Algeria or Morocco....There is a lot of resentment even among the secular middle classes (in Tunisia) now. So I think the ground is far more favourable for radical movements in Tunisia, paradoxically.”