(Reuters)
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US intelligence analysts are uncovering a treasure trove of information from the computers and other devices taken from Osama bin Laden’s lair that could help thwart future al Qaeda attacks, it was reported yesterday.
A senior US official told NBC News that an initial check of the electronic devices found they “contain very valuable information,” and that it was “entirely possible” the data includes details about the shadowy financiers of al Qaeda.
Investigators are scouring the hard drives, thumb drives and cellphones for references to “explosives” or code words such as “wedding” — a term that al Qaeda fiends have used in the past to refer to upcoming bombings, sources said.
The electronic snoopers are also eyeballing data that could identify previously unknown terrorists, networks and their tactics.
Attorney General Eric Holder told the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday that he was confident that the huge haul from bin Laden’s cushy retreat in suburban Pakistan would cough up new people to add to the US terror watch list.
The devices — said to be five computers, 10 hard drives, cellphones and more than 100 thumb drives — are being analyzed at a joint CIA-FBI intelligence facility in Virginia, just outside Washington, DC, a senior federal counterterrorism investigator told The Post.
He said the devices will be examined for possible damage, electronically copied, and checked to make sure that they contain no self-destruct viruses that could be triggered.
They first have to triage the evidence they discovered, the investigator said.
Then they will start doing so-called “dirty word” searches, looking for code words or slang that could indicate terror plots.
Analysts also will be sifting through data from the cellphones that bin Laden’s henchmen were using at the compound. They’ll log the numbers from calls made to and from the phones, and then trace them to determine where al Qaeda members had traveled, and whom they interacted with.
“They’ll want to see what numbers are in contact with this phone, then they’ll see certain patterns, certain connections and certain clusters,” the investigator said.