Al QaedaIntelligence agencies get an inside look at al Qaeda

Bin Laden raid yielded a vast amounts of intel // Source: wbur.org

As analysts pour through the files confiscated from Osama bin Laden’s compound, U.S. intelligence agencies are gaining valuable insights into al Qaeda’s operations and plans as well as how they think and operate.

Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee last Wednesday, FBI director Robert Mueller said the documents indicate that al Qaeda is still actively seeking to attack the United States.

“We are focused on the new information about the homeland threat gained from this operation,” he added. So far the documents that have been unencrypted and translated have revealed that al Qaeda actively sought to attack America’s railways an oil and gas tankers, leading to stepped up security at these transportation hubs.

In addition, the CIA and other counter-terrorism agencies have increased their focus on midlevel leaders who have been revealed to be more critical to the group’s operations than previously believed.

The documents also reveal that al Qaeda feels the pressure of U.S. surveillance and operatives are acutely aware that they could be captured or killed. For instance, the data showed that two terrorists altered their travel plans to avoid becoming targets of U.S. counterterror actions.

During the raid that killed bin Laden, Navy SEALs managed to take bin Laden’s handwritten journal, five computers, ten hard drives, and 110 thumb drives.

Copies of the captured data have been distributed to several federal intelligence agencies including the FBI and the Defense Intelligence Agency for analysis.

An anonymous official speaking to Time Magazine, said that cyber experts and translators are “95 percent done” with decrypting and translating the confiscated information.

Officials were careful to specify that none of the files indicated that an attack is imminent. Instead, the data has opened up what an official called “new avenues of research” into potential terrorist targets.

Investigators believe they may have also found information regarding bank accounts or phone numbers as they have discovered several sequences of numbers that they are trying to decode.

Officials say that correspondences between bin Laden and operatives from around the world have been particularly insightful as they offer a better glimpse at the personalities and thinking of well-known al Qaeda operatives.

In correspondence, it appears that some leaders have pushed for large mass casualty attacks like 9/11 while others have proposed smaller targets around the world to avoid increasing security measures.

Bin Laden did not specify a preference for either one, but he did seem to embrace smaller attacks like those carried out by Yemen’s al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula as they helped promote al Qaeda’s reputation as a dangerous organization still able to strike targets in the United States.

While bin Laden and operatives around the world discussed potential attacks and bin Laden going so far as to advise followers on how best to execute strikes, there has been no evidence to suggest that any of these plans were actually carried out.

The United States is keeping its allies like Britain, Germany, and other European nations up to date on any new information gleaned from the bin Laden files.

Officials have also said that intelligence agencies have shared information with Pakistan in an effort to mend strained ties with the country following the secret raid on the bin Laden compound deep in their territory.