...namely terror carried out in the Western world.
You're making two mistakes: One is confusing goals with what is used to achieve goals. For Al Qaeda, terror is only a means to an end. The end is more along the lines of restoring a worldwide Islamic state under Sharia law and a particular brand of Islam. Latter bit, particular brand of Islam, is pretty important (it partially explains why bin Laden had his Saudi citizenship revoked, despite Saudi Arabia being under Sharia law already)
The other mistake is that you're assuming that all the organizations under Al Qaeda (think of them as an umbrella corporation, really) or people within Al Qaeda want to fight against western nations. Abdullah Azzam (one of the initial founders of Al Qaeda) wanted to move into Israel after Al Qaeda's small part in pushing the Soviets out of Afghanistan, not the West (like al-Zawahiri wanted) or Saudi Arabia (like bin Laden wanted). And bin Laden - and Al Qaeda - have some pretty strong ties in Africa as well (see Sudan, Somalia and Yemen, for example).
Your first point - I agree of course, sorry if it wasn't implied.
Your second point - That's exactly the point I'm making. Al Qaeda isn't led by one person who dictates what to do and what not to do. It's more of an ideology, and not all it's members choose to fight the same enemy in the same way. That's exactly why it's so hard to fight - you're trying to kill people's ideas which is not something you can do with bombs.
You misunderstood my second point a bit: By "an umbrella corporation", I don't just mean that Al Qaeda is made up of different cells. I mean that each of the cells is united by a group of people higher up. In this case, it primarily means Bin Laden and al-Zarqawi, but there are others (Azzam used to be on this list, for example). These guys still have their own goal - a global Islamic state.
bin Laden, al-Zarqawi, etc just view the rest of the groups under the umbrella as different pieces to helping them achieve their goal. That group x wants independence, while group y wants to maintain control (or whatever the case may be) is irrelevant to them. They want all the groups to succeed because if it does, then, thats one more area in the world where Islam rules, one step closer to their end-goal.
And that is why Al Qaeda having ties everywhere is such a problem. That Al Qaeda is an umbrella to bring all of these groups together to trade people and/or skillsets among groups is the problem. Not that Al Qaeda will go and blow up some building in some country. Because then, thats two more groups with information that can (potentially) be used in bad ways.
You're making two mistakes: One is confusing goals with what is used to achieve goals. For Al Qaeda, terror is only a means to an end. The end is more along the lines of restoring a worldwide Islamic state under Sharia law and a particular brand of Islam. Latter bit, particular brand of Islam, is pretty important (it partially explains why bin Laden had his Saudi citizenship revoked, despite Saudi Arabia being under Sharia law already)
The other mistake is that you're assuming that all the organizations under Al Qaeda (think of them as an umbrella corporation, really) or people within Al Qaeda want to fight against western nations. Abdullah Azzam (one of the initial founders of Al Qaeda) wanted to move into Israel after Al Qaeda's small part in pushing the Soviets out of Afghanistan, not the West (like al-Zawahiri wanted) or Saudi Arabia (like bin Laden wanted). And bin Laden - and Al Qaeda - have some pretty strong ties in Africa as well (see Sudan, Somalia and Yemen, for example).