Identifying al-Qaida

Recent attacks "bear the hallmarks of this new al-Qaida – a looseknit cluster of small groups not controlled by a mother organization but well aware of what is expected of them... ‘If you believe in their ideas, then you are one of them. You are al-Qaida,’ said Abdel Rahim Ali, an Egyptian expert on radical Islamic groups... Al-Qaida, he said, is now bound only by an ideology... The individuals or small groups that act under al-Qaida’s umbrella are believed to draw on their own resources or do their own simple fund-raising, suh as collecting donations in mosques...Audio or videotape messages from bin Laden or his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, are believed to be used as general guidelines by those versed in al-Qaida’s ways – they can read between the lines and conclude where bin Laden might like them to act...