There is quite a bit of debate surrounding the validity of an interview/confessional in Moscow News by sometime Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) member Shukhrat Masirokhunov. (Interview here.) The latest issue of Eurasia Daily Monitor (234) summarises the points of contention.

Mind you, something rung a bell:

“Masirokhunov claims that al-Qaeda has no real unified structure; instead, each group of Islamic terrorists acts autonomously. Information and instructions are circulated among the cells via the Internet.? “For example, [Abu Musab] al-Zarqari in Iraq. He is called a representative of [Osama] bin Laden, but it is not true; he is on his own. It was not long ago that we got in touch with him and offered help to him, but he refused to accept it. I met with al-Zarqari two years ago,” Masirokhunov continued. “There was nothing outstanding about him, and back then I was much higher in our hierarchy.” “

This is quite a pertinent analysis, and it echoes the main argument in Jason Burke’s Al-Qaeda: The True Story of Radical Islam, namely that Al-Qaeda is simply the most prominent of latterday militant Islamist groups, rather than the be all and end all of the movement, and chooses whether or not to work with (mostly) regional-based groups.