In 1993, when the US put further pressure on Pakistan, the Pakistani authorities started to register, arrest and expel "Afghani Arabs", who still remained in Pakistan, although the bulk had been dispersed to their home countries or gathered to Sudan by Al Qaida. A Pakistani register of the time included more than 5000 foreign mujahidin, whose numbers might be indicative for analyzing the composition of radical jihadists in general and Al Qaida in particular (p. 47):

1142 Egyptians

981 Saudis

946 Algerians

792 Yemenis

771 Jordanians

326 Iraqis

292 Syrians

234 Sudanese

199 Libyans

117 Tunisians

102 Moroccans

[Note: Gunaratna lists "Algerians" twice, which is probably a typo. I have interpreted the latter number as Yemenis.]

Some features are obvious: All of them are Arabs from the Middle East and North Africa. Even though the media continues to repeat the myths of even "thousands" of Chechens, Central Asians and others, there are no traces of them in any official registers. In the 2000s, individual South East Asians and Uighurs as well as the well-known Uzbek contingent (partly consisting of Afghanistan's Uzbeks, but partly of Uzbeks from the IMU of Juma Namangani) have appeared in the Afghan theatre, but not a single Chechen has been captured or killed in the rows of the Taliban or Al Qaida. Although Al Qaida has gained foothold in South East Asia and tried to infiltrate the conflicts in Central Asia and the Caucasus, the organization remains strongly Arab-dominated, and therefore also dominated by the traditions and networks of Middle Eastern political extremist movements.

Return to Afghanistan
When Sudan came under heavy international pressure to expel Al Qaida, and Al Qaida's Sudanese protector Hassan al Turabi fell into disgrace of the "rightist" military circles of Sudanese Islamist government, and when simultaneously the radical Islamist movement Taliban had gained overhand in Afghanistan, Usama bin Ladin and Al Qaida's key leadership moved back to the Afghan theatre in 1996.

Although according to Leitzinger bin Ladin was invited to Afghanistan by Hekmatyar, Gunaratna points out that he first lived in Yunus Khalis' farm Hadda in Jalalabad. The farm had actually belonged to Khalis' protégé "Engineer Mahmud". For image-related reasons, however, Usama preferred to meet journalists in caves, and give an image of a puritan life. (p. 55.)

In Feb-Mar. 1997, Usama moved to Kandahar, following Mullah Omar's request. He also often stayed at Al Badr camp in Khost, and sometimes at Zhawar camp, which belonged to the Afghan commander Jalaluddin Haqqani. The Saudi intelligence chief Turki bin Faisal is known to have visited Kandahar to offer funding for the Taliban. (p. 56.)

In the following years, 1997-1998, Usama's main goals in Afghanistan seemed to be mediating truces between radical Islamists worldwide, so that they would all concentrate in fighting the US and its interests, and put other goals aside for the time being. (p. 58.) This means Usama was mainly continuing on the very policy line that had dominated Al Qaida's efforts throughout the late Sudan years, 1995-1996, which witnessed for example the meetings in Cyprus, Iran and Sudan, founding of the "Terrorist International", which was chaired by Zawahiri and Hizbollah's Imad Mughniyeh, and in general Al Qaida contacts with Hizbollah and the Iranian intelligence.

Al Qaida's Functioning
Al Qaida has a unique structure combining highly centralized ideological indoctrination and coordination on one hand, but highly decentralized and self-sustaining practical activity on the other hand. This kind of structure makes if a Hydra like cancer, where everything is controlled by the "political officers" and agent handlers of the ideological center - just like in the Marxist predecessors of Al Qaida - but yet if the head of the monster is destroyed, the cells could carry on their terrorist activities and continue spreading hatred against the United States.

It is wrong to distinguish "religious terrorism" from "political terrorism", because the so-called religious terrorism is political terrorism, too. The artificial distinction has so far only blurred the understanding of the ideological roots of radical Islamist terrorism in the political radicalism of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Also Gunaratna recognizes that it is the very modern and political fashion of anti-Americanism that has made Al Qaida so uniquely flexible, variable, widely based and international organization. (pp. 115-116.) It is therefore that it is also most dangerous, and it feeds directly on the mainstreams of Western radical milieu itself: anti-Americanism being at the core of it.

However, it would be wrong to characterize Al Qaida as a "loose" organization, since from its communist predecessors it has inherited both the strict discipline, organization, and ideological control. (p. 296.) Al Qaida has an internal security service, led by Muhammad Mousa. (p. 78.) It also screens very carefully the actual membership selects from a great bulk of applicants, demanding systematically 14 personal characteristics as criteria for membership. (p. 98.)

All Al Qaida operatives are compelled to use pseudonyms to blur and hide their actual identities and political backgrounds. (p. 79.) Al Qaida's pseudonyms are often comprised with some common Muslim names plus a suffix indicating the person's home country - or alternatively a place he otherwise wanted to identify himself with, like in many cases a jihad front the person had fought in. For example:

Egyptian: al Masri

Yemeni: al Yemeni

Jordanian: al Urduni

Algerian: al Jazairi

Moroccan: al Maghribi

Sudanese: al Sudani

Tunisian: al Tunisi

Libyan: al Libi

Iraqi: al Iraqi

Saudi Arabian: al Makki (Meccan) etc., as Al Qaida refuses to refer to the name of the Saud dynasty.

Pseudonyms referring to places where the person has fought can be for example like al Banshiri (Panjshir Valley), al Kashmiri (Kashmir), al Shishani (Chechnya), al Bukhari (Bukhara) and so on. But such names also commonly occur as genuine family names among Muslim populations.

Gunaratna sums well the nature of Al Qaida under the title "Understanding the Threat" on page 296: "By adapting and seamlessly grafting preexisting models, Al Qaeda has built an Islamist organization full of vitality. Its politically clandestine structure is built on the idea of internationalism. Using techniques drawn from Leninism and operating on the Marxist militant model, it uses noms de guerre, adheres strictly to a cell structure, follows the idea of a cadre party, maintains tight discipline, promotes self-sacrifice and reverence for the leadership and is guided by a program of action. Al Qaeda is self-reproducing and therefore hard to defeat."