Abu Musab al-Zaraqawi’s Al Qaeda offshoot in Iraq demonstrates this well: the group was called Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia for recruitment and propaganda purposes, but it was quite autonomous organizationally and operationally. When Bin Laden’s close collaborator Ayman al-Zawahiri asked al-Zaraqawi to avoid targeting Shiites, al-Zaraqawi instead escalated the violence against them.
自9/11事件后，基地组织已经与等级森严的邪教组织大相径庭。这一点在阿布·穆萨布·扎卡维的基地组织伊拉克海外分部问题上得到了充分的证明：该组织为方便招募和宣传起见在美索不达米亚对外自称为基地组织，但无论在机构还是运作方面都具有相当的自主性。本·拉登的亲密合作者艾曼·扎瓦希里要求扎卡维不要袭击什叶派的时候，扎卡维反而加强了对什叶派的进攻。