Newly Released Al-Qaeda Memo Talks Of Mini-Submarines And Sleeping Pills

Gay Pride Parades and tactics involving sleeper cells using sleeping pills recently emerged as subjects in previously secret Bin Laden compound memos.

Requested from the Department of Justice by German prosecutors, the memos indicate "a mixture of megalomania and attention to detail," according to Die Zeit. In them senior al-Qaeda leader Younis al-Mauretani calls for attacks on standard targets like infrastructure and energy along with stranger things like:

— Gay pride parades

— The Rand Corporation

Some of their more sketchy tactics included:

— Use of mini submarines to plant explosives on pipelines

— Encouraging members to gain employment as pilots for major airlines, then, on a specified target flight, drug their co-pilot with sleeping pills and steer the plane into a target

— Enroll in American universities under useful majors such as chemistry, physics, and "profane sciences," and wait for activation

Zeit calls the document "less a coherent plan, it is more of a strategic vision," reporting it often "drifted into fantasy in this case also, ranting about about al-Qaeda future 'maritime battalions' or the 'generals' of one day to be established Islamic state."

Zeit reporters with direct knowledge of the 17 page memo said lawyers had "fundamental doubts" about the validity of the documents, but that most of the documents from Bin Laden's compound were incredibly difficult to verify.