Newspaper finds laptop used by al-Qa'eda chiefs By Ben Fenton in Washington (Filed: 01/01/2002)
TWO computers apparently used by Osama bin Laden's top lieutenants have been recovered in Kabul, providing stunning evidence of the complexity and ambition of al-Qa'eda, it was reported yesterday.
The Wall Street Journal said one of its reporters had bought a desktop and laptop computer that, among other things, confirmed that the terrorists were responsible for the murder of Ahmad Shah Massoud, the leader of the Northern Alliance, just before the September 11 attacks.
Massoud was assassinated when two men posing as television journalists detonated a bomb hidden in a camera while pretending to interview him. The computer hard drives contain the original of a letter requesting the interview.
Among hundreds of files recovered from the computer by the newspaper are detailed discussions of the development of chemical and biological weapons under the heading of Operation al-Zabadi, the Arabic word for curdled milk.
In one memo, apparently written by Ayman Zawahari, bin Laden's chief strategist, he says "the destructive power of these weapons is no less than that of nuclear weapons".
But in a bitter irony for America it adds that "we only became aware of them when the enemy drew our attention to them by repeatedly expressing concern that they can be produced simply".
Many of the documents refer to al-Qa'eda as "the corporation" and its chief officers as "the general management".
The Journal said its reporter bought the computers from a shop that had bought them from a looter. He had apparently taken them from a building used by al-Qa'eda leaders in Kabul that was destroyed in American bombing.
The paper says the hard drives contain large numbers of documents written to and by members of the network's cells in Europe, the Middle East and elsewhere around the world.
Although it would be a goldmine of information for investigators, the paper does not say if it has handed over copies of the files to the FBI or CIA.
The computers were clearly used by a number of people, including Zawahari and Mohammed Atef, the military head of al-Qa'eda who died in a bombing raid near Kabul last November.
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