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Alive and Deadly - The workings of al Qaeda's expanding franchise "It has become accepted to use the term al Qaeda when referring to any violent Islamic grouping that appears to have a broader organizational connection. To refine that definition there has been added the recognition of at least three so-called "franchises" with a national or regional orientation: al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), and al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). All have an outreach beyond their immediate geographical area. The mistake that is made, however, is to characterize al Qaeda as the overall operational director of the movement.

The theoretical central control organization, al Qaeda, itself – with Ayman al Zawahiri as its post- bin Laden leader – is nonetheless viewed by most Western observers in a headquarters context for broad planning, propaganda, and sometime coordination among the several franchises. To a certain extent, central al Qaeda reportedly has informal elements circulating as mentors among various local popular groups......

Benghazi has been a key jihadist recruiting ground going back even before the American military presence in Afghanistan beginning October 2001. As the center of Cyrenican (eastern province of Libya) resistance against Gaddafi's central government, local insurgent groups eventually formed into varying-sized militias with clan ties. Before that, however, the legends of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda had encouraged the growth of a development pool of Afghanistan-bound young men. This movement later evolved into several anti-Gaddafi underground nets. One of these assumed the name Ansar al Shariah, which had surfaced originally in Yemen as part of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP)........"