Keystone Kops Alert: “Civil servant suspended after top secret al-Qa’eda documents are left on train,” by Graham Tibbetts for the Telegraph, June 12 (thanks to all who sent this in):
A senior civil servant has been suspended after top secret intelligence documents on al-Qa’eda were left on a commuter train, the Cabinet Office announced….
The documents, which also relate to Iraq, were only intended for senior officials and ministers and should have been kept in a secure briefcase….
The individual who left the documents on the train is a senior civil servant working in the Cabinet Office’s intelligence and security unit, which contributes to the work of the Joint Intelligence Committee.
It is understood that his work involves writing and contributing to intelligence and security assessments and that he has the authority to take documents of this sort out of the Cabinet Office, as long as strict procedures to ensure their safety are observed.
One of the documents is a seven-page report by the JIC on “al-Qa’eda Vulnerabilities” and is understood to look at the state of the Islamist terror network in Afghanistan and neighbouring Pakistan.
Commissioned by the Foreign Office and Home Office, the document was classified “UK top secret” and was considered so sensitive that each page was numbered and marked “For UK, US, Canadian and Australian eyes only”….