One of the more interesting outcomes of the Zacarias Moussaoui trial - the first in the US of anyone in connection with 9/11 - has been its role in exposing al-Qaida as a terrorist organisation like any other.
Unusually psychotic and dangerous, yes - but not as ordered or all-powerful as Osama bin Laden's propaganda videos would have us believe.
The latest allegations to enter the court come from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, al-Qaida's number three and the alleged mastermind of the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon.
Court papers detailing his interrogation at an unknown CIA "black site" following his arrest in Pakistan reveal him as contemptuous of Bin Laden, viewing the al-Qaida leader as an inferior terrorist who had got where he was only through his considerable personal wealth.
A Telegraph report adds that Mohammed believed Bin Laden's schemes "lacked destructive ambition", while he was a big mouth about those that did.
The Saudi failed to understand the basic security requirements of terrorist plots, such as keeping silent about impending attacks.
Mohammed cites Bin Laden's decision to inform a group of visitors to his Afghan headquarters that he was about to launch a major attack on American interests.
Then he told trainee terrorists at the al-Farooq training camp "to pray for the success of a major operation involving 20 martyrs".
Mohammed and a fellow terrorist manager, Mohammed Atef, who was later killed in an American air attack, were so concerned that they asked Bin Laden to shut up.
Something similar happened last week, when Moussaoui (who was in effect arguing for his execution) told the court he and the wannabe shoebomber Richard Reid were supposed to fly a fifth plane into the White House.
It made big news in the next day's newspapers - it was, without doubt, a very dramatic claim.
The testimony the following day from Waleed bin Attash, the alleged mastermind of 2000 USS Cole attack, that Moussaoui was more of an irritant than a holy warrior, was a little less well reported.
He failed to follow al-Qaida protocol and, said Attash, pestered him with phone calls to the point that he was forced to turn his mobile off.
None of that makes al-Qaida or similar outfits less deadly - as 9/11 and attacks in Europe, south-east Asia and, above all, Iraq, too bloodily demonstrate.
But it punctures their aura a little to be reminded that jihadists can be as vain and squabbling as the members of any faction.
