BAGRAM: American investigators armed with a “box full” of cash have paid thousands of dollars to buy back stolen computer drives — many of which contain sensitive military data, shopkeepers outside the main US military base in Afghanistan say.
But dozens of the memory sticks are still on sale five days after news broke of the security breach that has seen US generals’ social security numbers leaked reportedly along with a list of military spies.
The surfacing of the stolen computer devices has sparked an urgent inquiry to discover how security was breached at the heavily guarded Bagram base, which coordinates the fight against Taliban and Al Qaida terrorists and includes one of the military’s main detention facilities for suspected terrorists.
US military spokesman lieutenant Mike Cody said he could not comment because an investigation was ongoing. Shopkeepers let an Associated Press reporter review about 40 of the drives on a laptop computer on Friday. Most were blank or did not work, but three contained data, including a soldier’s military discharge certificate, troops’ CVs and photographs of Air Force One during George Bush’s visit to Afghanistan last month.
One shopkeeper, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of fear of retribution, said soldiers went around the market outside the base on Thursday carrying “a box full of afghanis (the Afghan currency), buying all they could find”.
He said he sold about 50 for 100,000 afghanis (£1,680), roughly about 2,000 afghanis (£33) each. A day earlier, he was selling them for about half that price. “They said they wanted them all and price wasn’t important,” the shopkeeper said.
The troops had not returned to the market by yesterday afternoon despite dozens of the flash drives still being available, but one shopkeeper, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said the troops had said they would return. Included on some memory drives seen by AP earlier this week were the social security numbers of hundreds of soldiers, including four generals, and lists of troops who completed nuclear, chemical and biological warfare training.
None, though, had classified military secrets as reportedly seen by a Los Angeles Times journalist. The shopkeepers have said they are not interested in the data and are only selling the drives for the value of the hardware.
They say the drives were stolen by some of the 2,000 Afghans employed as cleaners at Bagram.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service
