How realistic are depictions of Al-Qaeda in movies and on TV?

How realistic are depictions of Al-Qaeda in movies and on TV?

Jason Burke (Author) gives expert video advice on: What is Al-Qaeda?; What does Al-Qaeda want?; When was Al-Qaeda formed? and more...

The standard cinematic depictions or TV depictions of Al-Qaeda vary. They're getting better. A lot of them are very poor in that it was basically the James Bond villain idea of a man sitting in a cave in Afghanistan, with or without a white cat, effectively, at a big bank of controls running global terrorism. It doesn't happen like that. What has also come through, at the same time, though, are some quite good representations of militants, radicalization of terrorists on the ground, where you see how personal and individual a process that actually is.