Mad Melanie Phillips tells us that there is no principled difference between Al-Qaeda and mainstream Islamists like the Ikhwan, it’s all just a division of labour in the campaign to destroy western civilisation:

“… there are Islamists who oppose al Qaeda and terrorist action in the UK as a tactical mistake but nevertheless subscribe to the same strategic goal – to restore the medieval Caliphate, overturn British and western society and institute the rule of Islam instead. This is because there are two arms to the jihadi pincer: terrorist attack and cultural attack; and the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists use either or both depending on circumstances and upon differing strategic points of view between groups under the same jihadi umbrella.”

And over at Democratiya, we find two members of the Community Security Trust making the same point, assuring us that “Qaradawi condemned the suicide bombings in London on 7/7, but it does not appear that this was based on a principled objection to the methods or goals of the global jihadist movement”.

Which would come as something of a surprise to the Al-Qaeda leadership. As one commentator recently observed in an analysis of a statement by Ayman al-Zawahiri: “Zawahiri’s condemnation of Yusuf al-Qaradawi is particularly protracted and probably demonstrates how threatening he considers the popular Muslim Brotherhood scholar to be.”