Tuesday, April 11, 2006 3:29 p.m. EDT
Bagram Bazaar Hawks U.S. Intel Secrets
Afghan merchants have a new stock in trade to go with their usual wares of exotic carpets, dried fruits and nuts and highly prized karakul skins. Savvy technophiles can pick up top military secrets crammed into computer flash drives fresh out of the U.S. base in Bagram.
The L.A. Times reports that the local bazaar outside the huge U.S. base in Bagram featured stolen flash computer drives - cigarette lighter-sized computer memory storage units capable of holding enormous amounts of data - being peddled by Afghani merchants. The flash drives contain some of the most sensitive classified information, including assessments of enemy targets, names of corrupt Afghani officials and descriptions of American defenses.
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According to the Times, merchants at the bazaar admit that Afghani cleaners, garbage collectors and others who work at the military base show up daily offering such stolen goods as knives, watches, refrigerators, packets of Viagra and data from those flash memory drives taken from military laptops on the base.
A Times reporter recently obtained several drives at the bazaar that contained documents marked "Secret," the newspaper said. The article noted that the data on the drives included documents that were potentially embarrassing to Pakistan, presentations that named suspected militants targeted for "kill or capture" and discussions of U.S. efforts to "remove" or "marginalize" Afghan government officials whom the military considered "problem makers."
The drives also included deployment rosters and other documents that identified nearly 700 U.S. service members and their Social Security numbers, information the Times warned identity thieves could use to open credit card accounts in soldiers' names.
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"It's absolutely absurd that this is happening in any way, shape or form," said Jay Foley, co-executive director of the Identity Theft Resource Center in San Diego. Foley told the Times, "There's absolutely no reason for anyone in the military to have that kind of information on a flash drive and then have it out of their possession."
One flash drive obtained by the Times also contained a classified briefing about the capabilities and limitations of a "man portable counter-mortar radar" used to find the source of guerrilla mortar rounds. A map pinpoints the U.S. camps and bases in Iraq where the sophisticated radar was deployed in March 2004.
Also found on the drives:
A series of slides prepared for a January 2005 briefing of American military officials that identified several Afghan governors and police chiefs as "problem makers" involved in kidnappings, the opium trade and attacks on allied troops with improvised bombs. The chart showed the U.S. military's preferred methods of dealing with the men: "remove from office; if unable, marginalize."
A chart dated Jan. 2, 2005, listed five Afghans as "Tier One Warlords," naming Afghanistan's former Defense Minister Mohammed Qassim Fahim, current military Chief of Staff Abdul Rashid Dostum and counter-narcotics chief Gen. Mohammed Daoud as being involved in the narcotics trade. The Times reported that all three have denied committing crimes.
Another slide presentation identified 12 governors, police chiefs and lower-ranking officials that the U.S. military wanted removed from office. The men were involved in activities including drug trafficking, recruiting of Taliban fighters and active support for Taliban commanders, according to the presentation, which also named the military's preferred replacements.
The briefing said efforts against Afghan officials were coordinated with U.S. special operations teams and must be approved by top commanders as well as military lawyers who apply unspecified criteria set by Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld.
from newsmax |
