What ethnic, religious, cultural, tribal, etc tensions do Al Qaeda and OBL have with other muslims

Factual Questions
1

Generically the KKK is seen as a movement divided along white/non-white lines, but there are a lot of tensions and rejections even within the white race. If you aren’t a christian you are out (atheists, jews, etc). If you are the wrong kind of Christian (mormon, catholic, etc) you are out, you have to be protestant (I have no idea if it is a certain branch of protestant or all protestants). Anglo Saxons are preferred with other white ethnicities not wanted. Liberals (communists, liberals, labor unions, etc) are out.

So I get the impression that Al Qaeda is to islam what the KKK is to christianity, a radical hate group terrorist org. But even though Al Qaeda is generically seen as a group divided between muslims/infidels what all tensions exist within the Islamic community for Al Qaeda?

I’m under the impression Al Qaeda is mostly arabic and wahhabi sunni. I thought that in the invasion of Iraq Al Qaeda turned their efforts away from fighting the Americans and focused on attacking Shi’ite instead. So they went from being a group that targeted American non-muslims to a group that targeted other muslims of a different sect.

In a biography of Bin Laden I just read, it talks about how Bin Laden was afraid when he was in Afghanistan because he was an Arab and not a Pashtun. I don’t know if Al Qaeda had tensions with persians or the pashtun. Or if they have tensions with the other sects of Islam. But I got the impression that as an Arab in a Pashtun area he was at risk.

Is Al Qaeda generically a group divided between muslims and non-muslims, or like the KKK are there a host of divisions within that group (in this case muslims) that Al Qaeda is also at war with?

Are they heavily at war with other branches and movements within Sunni islam? What about with Shi’ite islam?

Or is Al Qaeda ok with any nationality, ethnicity, branch of islamic belief, political belief system, etc as long as the people are muslims? I seriously doubt that. My impression is if you aren’t a Wahhabi, arab, ultra conservative they may have a problem with you. But I honestly don’t know.

2

Huh, no takers.

3

if OBL was uncomfortable with Pushtuns, it need not be because he did not like non-Arabs for ideological reasons. A simpler explanation would be that Pushtuns were culturally (almost) as alien to him as they are to us. If “the business you have chosen” requires you to constantly watch your back, how much more so among strangers who might be “allies” to you right now for financial or military reasons, but who knows what comes tomorrow?

E.g. suppose OBL finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time in Afghanistan. Is he going to give a rousing “all Muslims are brothers” speech to people who don’t speak either Arabic or English? And even if the speech were translated, will the locals care about “Muslims” if they have a long history feuding even with close relatives?

In practice I recall reading that OBL went around with lots of Arab bodyguards and on some occasions these Arabs would take wives of the Pushtuns they had to deal with hostage to keep them keeping their promises. Generic Muslim solidarity apparently didn’t cut it when the rubber met the road in that place.

ETA: the non-Arab John Walker Lindh - Wikipedia was accused of active collaboration with Al Qaedah while he was hanging out in Afghanistan. He got in touch with them while on a stint in Bangladesh, also presumably amongst non-Arab people.

4

On an unrelated note due to reading on wiki, how about the resemblance between Hamid Karazi and Mohammed Zahir Shah, they look like they could be related.