Prior to the Iraq invasion there was a training camp in minority Iraq which, according to some reports, was used by al Qaida.

This was in a part of Iraq which was outside the control of Baghdad, because it was in between the Kurdish enclave and the Iranian border. That meant Saddam couldn't get at them - with some justice he regarded Islamic fundamentalism as a deadly danger to his regime. Nor could the Iranians, where the Al Qaida version of Islam is also very much out of favour.

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The reasons given in that link Amos gave for not regarding that claim by "the Abu Hafs Al-Masri Brigades" as being an authentic Al Qaida document don't seem to add up to much. They seem to be based on the assumption that "Al Qaida" means a centralised organisation with a fixed "house-style" when it comes to press releases and such. That seems a very problematic assumption indeed. It seems only too likely that what is involved is a very decentralised organisation, with cells and groups operating relatively autonomously, and involving people with a relatively wide range of backgrounds, reflected in these kinds of differences in terminology.