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I hope you're right. I think that they are having some organization problems. They could be signs of imminent collapse or they could be growing pains. I don't have enough info to know.

Al Qaeda Inc. has changed. Three years ago Al Qaeda was a huge centralized organization with a corporate headquarters in Afghanistan and it's CEO, CFO, and most of its Board of Directors there.

After 9/11, the US demolished the corporate headquarters in Afghanistan, removed (either by death or capture) as many of the corporate offices as it could locate, and then proceeded to close down branch offices all over the world. The problem is - new branches spring up as fast as one closes.

What's happened now is that Al Qaeda is now a very decentralized organization. I want to use the term "franchise" but that's not quite right either because to affiliate with Al Qaeda you pretty much just ahve to declare yourself a Moslem sworn to jihad, and then start out on your own.

There appear to be several different types of "projects", if you will. Those which were loosely defined and approved from the top, many of which may have been set into motion some time ago (months ago to probably pre-911), and those projects that are just being dreamed up on the fly by freelancers who I like to call Jihadi wannabes. Copycats, if you wish. These latter screw up a lot and get caught a lot. But when they get caught they don't take anyone else in the organizational structure with them. These aren't even cells - they are stand alone groups who just borrow the name. They aren't very likely to have the smarts to pull off a mass casualty event.They don't have the funding, for starters.

Eventually the war on terror will get a handle on the former - the ones that came down from the top. But mroe than likely another group will spring up in its place.

It's the little home grown ones that aren't going to go away.

The problem is the institutionalization of hatred. It isn't going to go away. It doesn't evaporate. Capturing Bin Laden isn't going to make everyone love America.

I know I keep harping on this but in my opinion any war on terror that does not address this is not going to succeed long term.

I may be wrong - and I would welcome other opinions on the subject.

SP2BF - your anaysis strikes me as right on the money. This is the bottom line reason why eom, daleel, et al, are still dangerous even if they are not "real" AQ. There are enough bogus wannabees out there that could be taking cues from them and being whipped into such a jihadi frenzy that they'll do whatever they can for "the cause".

As you point out, these tend to get caught because they aren't very smart or well funded, but their lack of connection can make them hard to catch, also.

Bottom line - we all need to keep our eyes open (can this be said too many times?).