Instruction and Methods From Al Qaeda Took Root in North Iraq Instruction and Methods From Al Qaeda Took Root in North Iraq
By C. J. CHIVERS
ARGA SHARKHAN, Iraq, April 22 � The two-inch-thick manual on killing, discovered in an abandoned bomb laboratory here early this month, offers instruction in Al Qaeda's array of lethal demolition skills.
With a text in Arabic complemented by diagrams taken from American military manuals, the document offers lessons for rigging explosives, setting and concealing booby traps, and wiring an alarm clock to detonate a bomb.
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The book is a photocopy of one volume of the Jihad Encyclopedia, the technical manual that American officials have said is used by Al Qaeda in its war against the West. Other copies were found in terrorist training camps and guest houses in Afghanistan after the defeat of the Taliban in 2001.
This copy, though, was found not in Afghanistan but in this valley in the Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq. It was recovered by Kurdish security officials accompanied by a reporter in a training center operated by Ansar al-Islam, a local armed party.
By C. J. CHIVERS
ARGA SHARKHAN, Iraq, April 22 � The two-inch-thick manual on killing, discovered in an abandoned bomb laboratory here early this month, offers instruction in Al Qaeda's array of lethal demolition skills.
With a text in Arabic complemented by diagrams taken from American military manuals, the document offers lessons for rigging explosives, setting and concealing booby traps, and wiring an alarm clock to detonate a bomb.
Advertisement
The book is a photocopy of one volume of the Jihad Encyclopedia, the technical manual that American officials have said is used by Al Qaeda in its war against the West. Other copies were found in terrorist training camps and guest houses in Afghanistan after the defeat of the Taliban in 2001.
This copy, though, was found not in Afghanistan but in this valley in the Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq. It was recovered by Kurdish security officials accompanied by a reporter in a training center operated by Ansar al-Islam, a local armed party.
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