A SWJ Blog pointer to the Newsweek article 'Inside Al Qaeda', a recommendation from another watcher and the All Things CT (from Australia) too. Sub-titled:
Nine years after 9/11, Osama bin Laden’s network remains a shadowy, little-understood enemy. The truth, as revealed by one of its fighters, is both more and less troubling than we think.
Newsweek link:http://www.newsweek.com/2010/09/04/inside-al-qaeda.html

All Things CT link:http://allthingsct.wordpress.com/201...-old-chestnut/

An interesting account of a juvenile, of Afghan origin living in Pakistan, being recruited, trained and then leaving - in response to his mother's pleas. Yes, some gaps and credibility to this armchair watcher.

So now All Things CT's comment:
one thing stood straight out when I read this. Their account of the class size–some 30 persons. Why this stood out is that this was the size of AQ’s basic training course at al-Farouq (though sometimes they had up to 40). And this size is actually bigger than the advanced training course size at Tarnak, which usually sat at around 15-20 persons.

Previous reports from recent training had tended to suggest AQ was only training at around 15 or so in a group, so this 30 figure stood out immediately. Whether they can still do this is of course a matter for debate, but nonetheless, even with talk of taking out so many fighters, which the authors cover in their article, this account of a full training compliment gives pause for thought.
Then there is a Peter Bergen piece:http://www.newsweek.com/2010/09/04/w...l-matters.html

All Things CT again:
Might we finally be seeing the death of that hoary old chestnut thrown about for so long–about a robust pre-9/11 ”AQ” with a large membership base of at least several hundred or more usually several thousand members, instead of the just under 200 strong membership (198 actually) it had as 9/11 loomed??? As long term readers of this blog will know it is one of the first things I wrote about when I started allthingsct last year.

Peter Bergen’s new piece gives me hope that this may be taking place.