Spy Watch: Al-Qaeda's Paper Trail

Some of the most valuable residue of the Taliban collapse in Afghanistan may turn out to be paper. FBI, CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency officials have quietly mounted a crash intelligence project to collect and analyze attendance rosters, pay ledgers, letters from home and other paperwork in bombed-out al-Qaeda training camps. From these and other sources, counterterror specialists are racing to assemble a master list of thousands of radical jihadists who studied and bonded at the camps, then scattered around the globe to form "sleeper cells." "A lot of documents have been left behind, and we've got to get our hands...

Want the full story?

Subscribe Now

Subscribe
Subscribe

Learn more about the benefits of being a TIME subscriber

If you are already a subscriber sign up — registration is free!