Fw: CD-rom of key Nato secrets feared sold

["Nello Margiotta" <animarg@tin.it>]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,653471,00.html

-It suggested that American forces were preparing for
the conflict almost a year before the first bomb was
dropped.

CD-rom of key Nato secrets feared sold
John Hooper in Berlin
Thursday February 21, 2002
The Guardian

The United States military's European Command last
night appealed for the return of a CD-rom said to be
packed with a wealth of secret military information on
the Balkans.

In a report to be published today, the German magazine
Stern said the disk had turned up in a laptop computer
auctioned on the internet.

The details on the disk were apparently compiled for
Nato's bombing of Kosovo. US European Command, based
in Stuttgart, said: "If someone says that they have
classified information, they should safeguard that
information and turn it in to the appropriate
authorities". It would not say whether a CD was
missing or an investigation was planned.

Stern said the disk carried a "Nato secret"
classification. It suggested that American forces were
preparing for the conflict almost a year before the
first bomb was dropped. Stern said the CD contained
plans, aerial photographs and the geographical
coordinates of 53 potential military targets in
Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

There were indications on the disk that the data had
been compiled between April and September 1998, and
that they had been put on the CD in February 1999, the
month before Nato began bombing.

The targeting of sites in Bosnia, a Nato-friendly
country, suggests a belief that Slobodan Milosevic
might have tried to seize installations there.

The laptop containing the disk was reportedly bought
for just DM118 (£38) in an internet auction by someone
in Herten, near Düsseldorf.

Stern said the seller, from Schweinfurt in Bavaria,
said he had bought the computer in an army surplus
sale.