Keep in mind that in Viet Nam by 68-69 we were wiping out the VC cadres and infrastructure in the South using the Phoenix program. This was JasonC's "well aimed" counter terrorism done very well. Between the Phoenix Program and the losses in Tet 68 the VC were on their backs: those losses had to be made up by sending vastly more NVA down the HCM Trail.
This movement of NVA was not interdicted for political not military reasons. Even after US main battle force departure and Vietnamization the war was at best a stalemate, and the North finally won with a conventional invasion only after the US Congress cut off military assistance to the RVN in 73-74, largely as a swipe at Nixon post Watergate.
In terms of Algeria, El Salvador and other cases where there is no HCM Trail and no NVA to send into the war, it is possible to wipe out the terrorist leadership and cadres with tightly focused well aimed "Phoenix Program" type operations without blowing up so many civilians that they are alienated and driven into the terrorist camp. We were doing it well in the RVN, and we did it in El Salvador, a clear victory for our side. We will have to do it on a large scale now in Afghanistan.
The unreported war will be the critical part of it, the "Phoenix" war.
Which suggests that care must be taken to insure that it stays unreported.
Personally, I don't trust the U.S. media to understand what will be happening in this sphere. It's not necessarily a "bias thing"; it's an "ignorance thing".