LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - Going through documents that were seized in the raid, it became clear that al-Qaeda was run like any other business. The group kept financial records with trails of receipts, often scribbled on notebook paper. The hiring process is especially thorough, with a questionnaire asking potential employees for personal references, previous jihad experience and whether they are exiled from their home country. If an operative is hired, al-Qaeda's bylaws neatly define their top operatives' job descriptions.

U.S. forces uncovered files in Iraq, Afghanistan and other battlefields over the past decade. The documents provide anecdotes about al-Qaeda's training process, operations, fighter profiles and even job benefits.

As of 2001, documents showed married fighters earning nearly six times more than single men. The fighters also received on average a week of vacation each month and funded trips abroad for medical care. Files also revealed that al-Qaeda requires its suicide bombers to sign a martyrdom agreement, vowing they willingly accept the mission and will not back out.

Noman Benotman learned the ins and outs of organizations like al-Qaeda as the former leader of the al-Qaeda-linked Libyan Islamic Fighting Group.

"It's a normal structure for any single jihad group. Al-Qaeda's just a copycat," Benotman says.

According to Benotman, organization is very important to the group's survival that seminars are held on the topic for aspiring leaders of jihad. "They believe in changing regimes through violence. So in a sense, they are revolutionary groups. So that said, you have to build a very good structure," he said.

Jarret Brachman, the author of the book, "Global Jihadism," said bin Laden never intended to create the broad-based network al-Qaeda has become.

"For bin Laden, al-Qaeda was always meant to be an elite, exclusive club. It was the vanguard organization that would differentiate itself from the broader, Muslim world," he said. "I think it became, though, really the selfish creation of several individual men who wanted a cult personality and needed that external affirmation."