US military secrets for sale at Afghan bazaar

No more than 200 yards from the main gate of the sprawling US base in Bagram, Afghanistan, stolen computer drives containing classified military assessments of enemy targets, names of corrupt Afghan officials and descriptions of US defenses are on sale in the local bazaar. Shop owners at the bazaar say Afghan cleaners, garbage collectors and other workers from the base arrive each day offering purloined goods, including flash memory drives taken from military laptops. The drives, smaller than a pack of chewing gum, are sold as used equipment. The thefts of computer drives have the potential to expose military secrets as well as Social Security numbers and other identifying information of military personnel. A reporter recently obtained several drives at the bazaar that contained documents marked "Secret." The contents included documents that described discussions of US 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 US service members and their Social Security numbers, information that identity thieves could use to open credit card accounts in soldiers' names. A flash drive 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 US camps and bases in Iraq where the sophisticated radar was deployed in March 2004. One of the computer drives stolen from Bagram contained a series of slides prepared for a January 2005 briefing of US 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 US military's preferred methods of dealing with the men: "remove from office; if unable marginalize." A chart dated Jan. 2, 2005, identified 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. Another slide presentation identified 12 governors, police chiefs and lower-ranking officials that the US military wanted removed from office. The briefing said the military also weighs any ties that any official has to President Hamid Karzai and members of his cabinet or warlords, as well as the risk of destabilization when deciding which officials should be removed, the presentation said.