More info on John Reid and al Qaeda has been retrieved from a computer in Kabul. There appears to be pretty good evidence that Reid is the "brother Abdul Ra'uff," who went on a series of target-scouting missions that match Reid's travels. They have learned a lot of important facts about al Qaeda and its operations, such as the names of 170 operatives, a "significant portion" of whom were not previously known. But as so often, the peripheral details are just as interesting:
Many of the text documents are not only protected by passwords but also couched in elliptical, coded language. The Taliban regime, for example, is apparently referred to as Omar & Brothers Company. Bin Laden’s al-Qaida is the Abdullah Contracting Company.The report of the target-spotting tour shows how members encoded their lives as well as their messages, wrapping even the mundane in subterfuge. It notes approvingly that “Abdul Ra’uff” took care to conceal his puritanical Islamic faith during a 10-day stay in the Netherlands. “At the hotel he would take empty alcohol bottles from the street and put them into trash containers in his room,” it says. He scavenged cigarette butts from adjacent rooms and dumped them in his own ashtray.