From a recent Slate article:

After the Madrid attacks, a number of journalists, academics, and other experts picked up on the idea ... that al-Qaida may not be what many people think it is. It's not one vast organization with tentacles everywhere; it's a kind of franchise that helps with cash here, logistics there. Most important, it is the brand name of an umbrella ideology that all the jihadists subscribe to, the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat and Salafia Jihadia, among others. Bin Laden is just the public face.

This is a very important point, and one that we don't consider often enough. "Al'Qaeda" and "bin Ladin" have become global brands, in the sense that terror groups are starting to use supposed al'Qaeda affiliation as a kind of badge of authenticity. The "Abu Hafs al-Misri Brigades," a radical Islamist group that has become very accomplished at assault by press release, has used bin Ladin's name to make various spurious claims, including taking credit for the 2003 American blackouts and the 3/11 bombings, and arguing that the Ashura bombings against Shiite Iraqi mosques were caused by Americans. (That last communique, from March 2nd, somehow forgot to warn that Spain would be a target in a matter of days.)

Saad al'Faqih, mentioned earlier, sees al'Qaeda in this way, noting that the bin Ladin brotherhood didn't even use the term "al'Qaeda" to refer to themselves until after 9/11. For al'Faqih, al'Qaeda's power comes from the elevation of it by America and its allies as a symbol of terror and evil; if he is to believed, our public hunting of bin Ladin since the African embassy bombings represents a serious misstep.

Al'Faqih's thesis, though well-researched and argued (as an Islamist himself, his political goals are consonant with bin Ladin's, though al'Qaeda's terroristic violence is not), is controversial, and the fact that we are now living in a world polarized between Bush and bin Ladin may make his argument moot. But we have always lived in a world where al'Qaeda is not the only, and perhaps not the most important, Islamist terror threat gathering against us.

Interviews with al'Faqih can be found at the Jamestown Foundation, and the Middle East Intelligence Bulletin.