1) "In all fairness" was clearly a turn of phrase intended to indicate that whilst it was fair point, there was a bigger issue at play. I see nothing wrong with that.
2) Since when is the submitter not allowed to comment?
Terrorism, particularly when it's cell-based, amorphous, and decentralized, is hard to label. But the title here is a clear example of wanton laziness.
1) Linkages are very distinct from identity. The UK is linked with the EU, and it's also simultaneously linked with the USA. We don't refer to, though, "USA Prime Minister David Cameron." Journalists love to drop the Al-Qaeda linkage line, but it's driven mostly by a desire to drive home the (true) point that these are murderous barbarians who cloak their actions in Islamic rhetoric and who are highly inimical to American interests.
And how closely are they linked? The head of Ansar Dine is a cousin to a commander of Al-Qaeda. No shared military exercises; no consolidated HR department; nothing of the sort. So basically a familial tie and a shared embrace of violence and Islamism, at least that I know of. So not only is the equation of linkage and identity deeply problematic, but the linkages seem to be of a weak sort.
2) The Al-Qaeda that Ansar Dine is being linked to is a different entity than the Al-Qaeda that's well-known in the USA. Indeed, it had an entirely different name on 9/11: the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat. It changed names about five years ago to cash in on Al-Qaeda's notoriety.
Why am I obnoxiously making a big deal about it, especially since I agree with the fundamental point that these are Bad People who share many attributes with Al-Qaeda? I like facts. Not just as a good in themselves, but because if there is a fact that's being ignored or misstated, people's understanding of reality is also going to be warped, leading to bad outcomes. If people think Al-Qaeda's nth in command is burning books in Timbuktu, it simultaneously makes people not understand how fundamentally the Al-Qaeda that planned 9/11 has been destroyed, and it implicitly suggests to them that to fix various Islamic fundamentalist problems we just need to do a more thorough job of disrupting Al-Qaeda's organizational structure, when that's not the issue at all.
Perhaps it is wrong to use the term Al-Qaeda in this case - it would probably have been better to say militant Islamic fundamentalists or some such than give any specific group name.
However, I was mainly trying address benatkins comment which I thought was an unfair criticism.
It's absolutely wrong to use the term Al-Qaeda on here. It isn't the author's blog, it's Hacker News, and they are quite clear in the guidelines that the submitter's commentary shouldn't be added:
> Don't abuse the text field in the submission form to add commentary to links.
Also you say "for the record" but neglect to cite a source. And you use the term "affiliated" which is somewhat vague.