It is interesting, the 9/11 Commission and its report terrorist financing said they found no evidence direct AQ links to the drug trade, even though numerous open source reports existed before and after 9/11. In a recent CSIS panel "Combating the Threat of International Organized Crime", FBI Deputy Director Pistole denied any direct links of AQ central to the drug trade:
MR. DE BORCHGRAVE: Yes, sir?

Q: Bill Pope, formerly of State Department counterterrorism. This question’s for John. There’s no question that some international terrorism groups have had links with organized crime, have used organized crime networks, et cetera. To the extent that you can say anything in this room and it might be nothing, but if you can, can you say anything about core al Qaeda and organized crime, not marginal groups, more marginal groups, but al Qaeda and organized crime?

MR. PISTOLE: Yeah, what I can say is thus far, Bill, and good to see you, is that although we have identified, we, law enforcement intelligence communities, have identified other terrorist organizations that have benefited from organized crime and clearly a number of different aspects here. We have not seen, to date, a direct link between what we would describe as international organized crime, traditional organized crime, and core al Qaeda.

MR. DE BOUCHGRAVE: John, if I could butt in at this point. Surely, Colombia is a convergence of transnational crime and transnational terrorism, as Afghanistan and those mountainous areas between Pakistan and Afghanistan are today.

MR. PISTOLE: Absolutely. Yes, there’s a number of other groups and if we went into detail, whether it’s FARC or Hezbollah or other groups, but not core al Qaeda, thus far.
Yet here is DEA Chief of Ops Braun:
"Terrorist organizations have chosen to participate in the narcotics market for several reasons....very good job at identifying private donors and disrupting the flows of terror financing....Partly for this reason, al-Qaeda has shifted from a corporate to a franchise leadership model in recent years."
He makes does not make the connection of the drug trade to AQ, it is almost a bait and switch. Later he acknowledges that "al-Qaeda or affiliate cell that carried out the Madrid train bombing funded that operation in almost its entirety through the sale of illicit drugs." That's the closest he comes to linking to AQ core, but the big caveat is "affiliate cell". I am familiar with the decentralized jihad paradigm.

What gives? Just seems like there is some incongruence.