Al Qaeda planned to hijack cruise ships and execute passengers, reveals 'treasure trove of intelligence' embedded in PORN video

Audacious plan 'one of several' discovered on decrypted memory disc

Tourists 'to be dressed in Guantanamo Bay orange jumpsuits' and killed

Wanted to conduct Mumbai-style terror attack in Europe

Twin-track strategy of 'low-cost, low-tech attacks' to busy security services

Then other 'operatives' plan large-scale 9/11 type atrocities

London 21/7 bombings failed because group was not in touch with leader



Al Qaeda planned to hijack cruise ships and post footage of passengers being executed online to pressurise governments to release particular prisoners, it has been revealed.

Documents embedded inside a pornographic movie, on a memory disc, show how the terror network wanted to dress tourists up in Guantanamo Bay-style orange jumpsuits before murdering them.



The audacious plan is just one of several plots discovered by investigators who decrypted the hardware found in the underpants of a suspected terrorist arrested in Berlin last year.

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Hijack: Al Qaeda wanted to seize cruise ships and post footage of passengers being executed online to pressurise governments to release particular prisoners (file picture)

Execution: Al Qaeda wanted to dress cruise ship passengers up in Guantanamo Bay-style orange jumpsuits and then film their murders to post footage online

THE KILLING MACHINE THAT APPALLED EVEN BIN LADEN



Osama bin Laden may have ordered the slaughter of the 9/11 attacks but he drew the line at a bloodthirsty killing machine dubbed the 'human lawn mower', according to papers seized from his compound.

An idea to fix rotating blades to the front of a pickup truck and drive it into crowds, mowing innocent people down like weeds, attracted widespread enthusiasm among Al Qaeda supporters on the internet last year.

But documents seized from the Bin Laden compound in Pakistan reveal that the Al Qaeda leader felt it was a step too far even for the terror group, according to intelligence officials who have read them.

'He was upset about it,' a former US intelligence official told the Washington Post.

'He felt it conflicted with what his vision for what he wanted Al Qaeda to be.'

Newly released excerpts from the al Qaeda papers seized when Navy SEAL commandos stormed his compound a year ago reveal how bin Laden was struggling to maintain his influence in a terror group whose command structure had been severely weakened by US drone attacks.

And, incredibly, the documents suggest the man who ordered two planes to fly into New York’s World Trade Centre was concerned that Al Qaeda’s public image was being tarnished by the atrocities being carried out in its name in Iraq and other parts of the Middle East.

In the months before his death bin Laden had backed a Libyan-born al Qaeda 'moderate', Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, in drawing up a code of behaviour that would rein in what they regarded as the worst excesses of Al Qaeda activity.

Although both men remained convinced it was their group’s duty to kill westerners, including civilians, they felt that murdering fellow Muslims was 'bad for their public image', said Al Qaeda expert Jarret Brachman . Tom Leonard

The cache of 141 documents, described as 'pure gold' by intelligence agencies, also details how the network wanted to conduct a Mumbai-style attack - where ten gunmen killed 164 people in a three-day rampage in 2008 - in Europe.



And it reveals the organisation is using a 'twin-track strategy' - using 'low-cost, low-tech attacks' to keep security services preoccupied as other 'operatives' plan large-scale 9/11 type atrocities.

The documents, seized by German intelligence operatives in the days following Osama Bin Laden's death last year, reveal an 'extraordinarily detailed insight into the inner workings of Al Qaeda'.



They also state some of the tactics used by the organisation as it attempts to elude the counter-terrorism initiatives of the world’s military and intelligence agencies.

CNN reports how Al Qaeda's hand in the London 7/7 and attempted 7/21 bomb plots emerges for the first time with a highly detailed account from cell leader Rashid Rauf.



CNN's Nic Robertson said: 'These documents show that London was extremely lucky on 7/21.



'The terrorists were using the same bomb-building instructions as the 7/7 bombers, who had actually encountered the same problem with the way they had mixed their explosives.



'The 7/7 bombers had closer contacts with Rauf and were able to contact him and change their bombs so that they worked.'



The 46 page document outlines how and why the liquid explosive plot took shape and explains how counter-surveillance measures by the 21/7 bombers threw security officers off their scent.



The files also contain details of the ways in which Al Qaeda seeks to learn from its mistakes, and the levels of sophistication and determination within its ranks.



In addition, they reveal the impact that military drone strikes and infiltration by intelligence agencies are having on al Qaeda's numbers and behaviour.

Robertson added: 'These documents lay open Al Qaeda’s inner workings. They prove the links between some of its highest profile plots and attacks, and show how it's trying to cope with the constant pressure from military and intelligence operations against it.'



The documents were discovered on the memory disc when Austrian 22-year-old Maqsood Lodin was arrested following his return to Germany from Pakistan.

Buried amongst the files was a pornographic video called Kick Ass, and a document marked 'Sexy Tanja'.



It took German investigators several weeks to decrypt the file, but when they did they found an inside track on some of the terror group's most audacious plots and a road map for future operations.



PDF terrorist training manuals in German, English and Arabic were also found in what U.S. intelligence sources say is the most important haul of terrorist materials in the last year.

Lodin and another man called Yusuf Ocak, who allegedly travelled back to Europe with him, are now on trial in Berlin where they are pleading not guilty to terror offences.

Ocak was detained in Vienna two weeks after Lodin's arrest.

Destruction: The 7/7 London bombings only 'succeeded' because the bombers were in contact with the cell leader, as opposed to the group behind the failed 21/7 explosions