Strategy Page says that Al Qaeda is on the run, though you wouldn’t know it from the press coverage:

Al Qaeda is eagerly recruiting other Islamic terrorist organizations, usually ones that have recently taken a big beating in their home country, to become part of al Qaeda. That’s about the only growth al Qaeda is experiencing. In Iraq, former Sunni Arab allies of al Qaeda have openly turned on the organization, and are eagerly hunting them down and killing them. Al Qaeda is fighting back, now sending death squads after Sunni Arab tribal chiefs. Does that sound like something a winner would be doing?

Al Qaeda is having some success in the Western media, and among Moslems living in Europe.

Emphasis mine.