Top secret intelligence documents on the al-Qaeda terrorist network and on Iraq which were left on a train in Britain had not damaged vital security interests or put individuals and operations at risk, the government insisted Thursday, according to dpa. However, the loss of sensitive, high-level intelligence assessments on the "vulnerability of al-Qaeda" and the "competence" of the Iraqi security forces was nonetheless a serious breach of security that could not be condoned, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said. Scotland Yard has launched an investigation into the unauthorized removal of the classified documents from the Cabinet Office, a key government department, which were found on a commuter train Tuesday. They were handed over by a passenger to a local BBC radio station before being passed on to the police, officials said. "We will have to trace where these documents have gone, if they have gone anywhere apart from an envelope to a local BBC station," said Brown Thursday. The senior civil servant at the centre of the scandal had been suspended from his post, the government confirmed. "There is no evidence to suggest that our vital national security interests have been damaged or any individuals or operations have been put at risk," said Ed Miliband, the Cabinet office minister. However, analysts said the papers, which were contained in an orange envelope marked "top secret," could have been extremely useful to terrorists if they had fallen into the wrong hands. One of the reports, drawn up by the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), a liaison body between the government and the security services, was understood to have investigated "the state of the Islamist terror network" in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The other dealt with the security situation in Iraq and was understood to contain "damning" passages on the alleged lack of competence and capabilities of the Iraqi security forces. The documents were considered so sensitive that each page was numbered and marked "for UK,US, Canadian and Autralian eyes only." Since the al-Qaeda attacks in the US in September 2001, Britain has intensified the exchange of intelligence information with key allies, and experts said the loss of classified papers of this nature would have "raised eyebrows" in Washington. The documents were likely to have given an insight into possible future government policy regarding al-Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and the security situation in Iraq - information that would have been highly useful to terrorists, said Bob Ayers, a security analyst at Chatham House, a foreign policy think tank. The security breach that had occurred was "criminal," said Ayers, and those responsible should face prosecution. "For a senior intelligence officer to leave this kind of material on a train constitutes criminal damage and he should be prosecuted," said Ayers. The incident is the latest in a series of embarrassing losses of sensitive government information, including the disappearance last November of computer discs containing the personal details of 7.2 million families receiving child benefit. There have also been losses of driving licence and health data. But, more sensitively, in January this year, a Royal Navy officer reported his laptop computer stolen which contained details of 600,000 people who had signed up for the service or expressed an interest in joining. There were two similar thefts in 2005.
