Al-Qaeda not 'monolithic' group: US officials

A US intelligence official repeated Wednesday a description of Al-Qaeda in Iraq as an "affiliate" group to Osama bin Laden's organization, in a careful assessment of the groups' closeness.

A day after President George W. Bush sought to directly tie bin Laden to the Iraq group, CIA officer Edward Gistaro said the the two groups shared ideologies but that Al-Qaeda deferred to the Iraq branch to make decisions on the ground there.

"As the president described yesterday, we're dealing with an Al-Qaeda that has a decentralized command-and-control structure. And I don't want to leave a false impression that we're talking about a monolithic organization," Gistaro told congressional panels. AFP