FORT MEADE, Md. – Al-Qaida leaders reveled in WikiLeaks’ publication of reams of classified U.S. documents, urging members to study them before devising ways to attack the United States, according to the prosecution Monday in the court-martial of the Army private who leaked the material.
“By the grace of God the enemy’s interests are today spread all over the place,” Adam Gadahn, an American member of the terrorist group, said in a 2011 al-Qaida propaganda video. The video specifically referred to material published by WikiLeaks, according to a written description of the propaganda piece submitted at the trial of Pfc. Bradley Manning. The evidence, which both sides agreed was factual, was read into the record by lead prosecutor Maj. Ashden Fein.
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Prosecutors also submitted excerpts from the winter 2010 issue of al-Qaida’s online magazine “Inspire,” which said “anything useful from WikiLeaks is useful for archiving.”
The government presented another uncontested written statement that former al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden asked for and received from an associate the Afghanistan battlefield reports that WikiLeaks published. The material was found on digital media seized in the May 2011 raid on bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, Fein said. Bin Laden was killed in the raid.
The evidence came as prosecutors neared the end of their case in Manning’s court-martial on charges he aided the enemy by sending hundreds of thousands of documents to the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks while working as an intelligence analyst in Iraq in 2009 and 2010.
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