Bankrolling bin Laden

David Cohen, the Treasury Department official in charge of terrorist financing, says al-Qaeda is having money problems. He terms it a "funding crisis," according to the BBC, and says the group has already made several fundraising appeals this year.

"We assess that al-Qaeda is in its weakest financial condition in several years and that, as a result, its influence is waning," Mr Cohen said from Washington.

Cohen didn't go into detail, but I would assume al-Qaeda's financial woes are driven both by its low popularity among Muslims and by good police work at asset control offices in the U.S. and elsewhere.

The Taliban, on the other hand, is apparently quite flush, thanks to the opium trade and donations from the Gulf. (Richard Holbrooke said in August that Gulf donors actually account for the majority of Taliban funding.)