November 2001: Al-Qaeda Documents Recovered in Afghanistan Detail Plots, Apparent Involvement in 9/11

As US forces invade Afghanistan, they and the journalists following them, uncover a quantity of al-Qaeda documents in training camps and houses used by the organization. The documents reveal a chilling array of terrorist plots. Some documents are apparently related to the planning of the 9/11 attacks. [Observer, 11/18/2001] A New York Times reporter finds two houses in Kabul’s diplomatic district containing, among other papers, a map showing the locations of power plants in Europe, Africa and Asia; training notebooks in military tactics and bomb-making; a list of Florida flight schools and a form that comes with “Microsoft Flight Simulator 98”; a document entitled “Before and After Precautions For Using Chemical, Biological, and Nuclear Warfare”; and a notebook on how to make nitroglycerine, dynamite, and fertilizer bombs, with a note next to one of the formulas saying “the type used in Oklahoma.” [New York Times, 11/17/2001] CNN reporters are led by Afghan police to a house in an upscale district of Kabul, which is apparently the same as the one visited by the New York Times reporter. In it they find a quantity of documents revealing al-Qaeda’s interest in acquiring nuclear weapons (see Mid-August 2001) and conventional explosives. According to David Albright, a nuclear weapons expert who is asked by CNN to analyze the documents, “These are people who are thinking through problems in how to cause destruction, for a well-thought-through political strategy.” [CNN, 12/4/2001; CNN, 1/24/2002; CNN, 1/25/2002; Albright, 11/6/2002] However, an extensive review of the documents later concludes that al-Qaeda’s main activity was to support the Taliban. “Reporters for The New York Times collected over 5,000 pages of documents from abandoned safe houses and training camps destroyed by bombs.… The documents show that the training camps, which the Bush administration has described as factories churning out terrorists, were instead focused largely on creating an army to support the Taliban, which was waging a long ground war against the Northern Alliance.… They show no specific plans for terror operations abroad, and while hinting at an ambition to use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, they contain no evidence that the groups possess them.” [New York Times, 3/17/2002]