Insight into Terror
So you run an internationally feared terrorist organization and you find one of your senior terrorists is breaking the rules, what do you do? Drop them into a tank of ravenous pirana fish, cut them in half with a giant saw, apparently if you are al-qaeda you send off a nasty memo...
"I was very upset by what you did," Atef wrote. "I obtained 75,000 rupees for you and your family's trip to Egypt. I learned that you did not submit the voucher to the accountant, and that you made reservations for 40,000 rupees and kept the remainder claiming you have a right to do so. ... Also with respect to the air-conditioning unit ... furniture used by brothers in Al Qaeda is not considered private property ... I would like to remind you and myself of the punishment for any violation."
The memo by Atef, who later died in the U.S.-led assault on Osama bin Laden's Afghan refuge in 2001, is among recently declassified documents that reveal a little-known side of the network. Although Al Qaeda has endured thanks to a loose and flexible structure, its internal culture has nonetheless been surprisingly bureaucratic and persistently fractious, investigators and experts say.