Ben Laden Raid Yeilds Trove of Computer Data

[Stuart G]

Source: Politico

By MIKE ALLEN | 5/2/11 7:51 PM EDT

The assault force of Navy SEALs snatched a trove of computer drives and disks during their weekend raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound, yielding what a U.S. official called “the mother lode of intelligence.”

The special operations forces grabbed personal computers, thumb drives and electronic equipment during the lightning raid that killed bin Laden, officials told POLITICO.

another link:

http://www.politico.com/

story on front page..



Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0511/54151.html

[neverforget]

1. Now maybe they can start rolling up the rest of Al Qaida and other

terrorist cells

[Grassy Knoll]

2. Cutting the head off the snake....

Thank you Stuart G. :toast:

[Adsos Letter]

3. I thought that compound had no internet access?

These were inactive computers, etc., in storage?

Edited to add: yeah, I guess there is a use for computers outside the internet... :D Ah, my bad.

[rabs]

5. Thought the same

CNN, MSNBC and others have been saying since yesterday there was NO cell phone, internet, landline connections to the place.

Considering that OBL had been there for five years, that creates a problem that media types like the one who wrote the OP should investigate and explain.

Maybe the hard drives will have pinball, poker and Delta Force games.

[originalpckelly]

7. He was communicating by courier.

It is likely they would bring in DVDs/CDs/thumbdrives in lieu of an internet connection.

[Adsos Letter]

8. Yeah, that finally dawned on me.

Just shows the primary function of MY computer.

[coyotespaw]

10. So that's how he uploaded

his Lolcats!!

[joshcryer]

14. Yeah, Cuba's "sneakernet" operates in the same fasion.

They use flash drives to share information and even "post" to blogs, sometimes by bribing someone with an internet connection.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

12. Maybe he was stealing bandwidth ...

... from a neighbor's wireless router.

cheap bastid.

:hi:

[center rising]

4. That's what I'm interested in.

Names, dates, places, what Al-Qaeda is up to. This could really be a windfall.

[cloudbase]

6. I wouldn't be surprised if there

existed some data indicating a direct connection between AQ/OBL and the Pakistani government. I doubt it would make the light of day, but would could be a diplomatic coup.

[onager]

9. Bad couple of weeks for Al-Qaeda...

Not that I'm complaining...

Published 22 April

Al-Qaeda terrorist commander killed in Chechnya

Chechen police have killed a prominent militant leader from Saudi Arabia, who co-ordinated the supply of Al-Qaeda money to gangs in southern Russia. Yusuf Muhammad al’Emirate nicknamed “Moganned” was among the six-strong bandit group which was discovered on Thursday in the mountainous area of the Russian Chechen Republic.

Police forces hunted them down. The gang resisted the arrest, and at least two of them were killed in the ensuing firefight, head of the Chechen Republic Ramzan Kadyrov told the media.

Moganned was member of the Al-Qaeda terrorist network, who had been operating in Russia since 1999. Through him money and weapons had been delivered to a number of notorious gang leaders of southern Russian republics...

http://rt.com/news/al-qaeda-commander-killed-chechnya/

IIRC, Bin Laden quit using the cell phone because of an incident in Chechnya. One of his buddies there answered his cell phone one day, and found a Russian rocket on the other end.

"Can you hear me NOW?"

:rofl:

[Ian David]

11. What level was he on Farmville? n/t

[sofa king]

13. That could make for a rough couple of weeks.

I'm no terrorist and I'm certainly not complaining about the results. But it occurs to me that the logical thing to do when you're a bad guy and your boss gets popped and an unknown amount of data falls into enemy hands is to pull the trigger on every operation in the works that one can while shutting down everything that can't be done immediately, before the data can be correctly interpreted and acted upon.

Those of you who are inconvenienced by the more-annoying-than usual security levels everywhere, please keep that in mind. There's a damned good reason to be careful for awhile.