Pentagon documents give glimpse of al-Qaida recruits

“We must completely stop outside operations until we sit down and consider the disaster we have caused,” writes the operative, who uses the name Abdel Halim Adel.

Adel does not disclose the country in which he is living, but he appeals to a friend in the al-Qaida leadership to steer the group away from the policies of bin Laden, whom he refers to as Abu Abdullah.

“Stop foreign operations, stop sending people to detention, and stop planning new operations, whether they are ordered by Abu Abdullah or not,” he writes.

The documents provide a rare glimpse of the mentality and training of recruits at al Qaida’s camps in Afghanistan, where bin Laden was based until late 2001.

Following the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, the United States threw its weight behind the Afghan opposition to overthrow the Taliban regime that hosted bin Laden.

While the camps in Afghanistan have been destroyed, many of their trainees have gone back to their home countries, taking al-Qaida’s ideology and techniques with them.

The US military says the documents, published this week, were “captured during recent operations.”

Some were seized during the 2003 invasion of Iraq but many, according to US Representative Pete Hoekstra, were found in Afghanistan.

“Why have the martyrdom operations against the Americans been delayed?” one recruit asks in a question written on a calendar page dated July 8, 2000.

Another recruit refers to the 1998 suicide attacks on the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed 231 people, saying: “We look forward to martyrdom operations like the ones in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. What are the characteristics of the man that is required to execute such operations?”

A third recruit asks the leadership why it disapproves of assassination: “Why do you oppose and find it inappropriate, knowing that it cleansed many tyrants?”

The recruits refer to bin Laden as “sheik,” a clerical title. But it is not clear whether their questions were addressed to bin Laden or one of his lieutenants.

“Our sheik, you have previously given us lessons and asked the question: ’How do we drive the infidels out of the Arabian Peninsula?”’ a recruit says in one document.

He then asks the sheik: “Is striking at the origin (America) the priority or is it driving them out (of Saudi Arabia)?”

The documents show that al Qaida members are concerned about their own safety and that of their families, although they embrace the tactic of suicide.

Adel, the operative who criticised bin Laden, protests the leadership’s posting on the Internet of a letter in which he sent kisses to his children.

“Please quickly take it off because I think the whole world now knows how many kids I have and their names,” he writes.

A recruit says a reconnaissance plane has been spotted over the camp and writes: “Why aren’t there enough personal weapons (Kalashnikov rifles) for the self-defence of all the holy warriors, particularly as an attack on the camp by the global infidels is possible anytime?”

Bin Laden himself is thought to have written one of the documents – a letter to Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar. It is not clear whether the letter was written before or after Omar was overthrown and forced to leave Afghanistan.

Bin Laden tells Omar that if they continue attacks in the “Islamic republics” – apparently the Muslim states of the former Soviet Union – it will “keep the enemies busy and divert them away from the Afghan issue and ease the pressure.”

“It is a fact that the region of the Islamic republics is rich with significant scientific experience in conventional and non-conventional military industries, which will have a great role in future holy war against the enemies of Islam,” says the letter. It is not specific on the type of non-conventional armaments, but it seems to be referring to biological and chemical warfare.

The letter also talks of the importance of communicating with the media, an issue on which Mullar Omar would have disagreed. The Taliban leader was famous for refusing press interviews and avoiding cameras.

“It is obvious that the media war in this century is one of the strongest methods (of struggle). In fact, its ratio may reach 90 percent of the total preparation for battles,” bin Laden writes.

The release of the documents, which is expected to continue for months, is designed to allow US lawmakers and the public to investigate issues such as what Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi regime said about weapons of mass destruction.

The Pentagon cautioned it has made “no determination regarding the authenticity of the documents, validity or factual accuracy.”