The entire U.S. intelligence community is busy pursuing leads from files recovered from Osama bin Laden's Abbottobad, Pakistan, compound to determine whether bin Laden's plots had gone beyond the discussion and planning phase to concrete threats, government sources told ABC News.

Sources familiar with bin Laden's handwritten journal and computer files told ABC News that names of suspected al Qaeda operatives had been found in the files, and that an intense effort was under way to find the individuals attached to those names.

A special Media Exploitation Task Force "working 24/7" in shifts has been set up on the grounds of CIA headquarters to exploit the bin Laden files.

U.S. intelligence has been trying to determine if the names in the files are real or aliases, and has called on Great Britain and Canada to to help it nail the identifications.



"The names that they are finding are extremely important," former FBI Agent Brad Garret said in an interview with ABC News. "I believe that they're under a lot of pressure to resolve and identify these people as quickly as possible."

Travel records are being combed to see if any of these people have entered the U.S. already, and names are being added to terrorist watch lists in case any operatives try to come here.

Some officials have expressed shock that bin Laden kept so much sensitive material with him in what has been described as the most significant terrorism trove ever discovered.

Analysts pouring over the bin Laden files have found a number of references that signal he was pushing the terror network to ready an attack on U.S soil on or before the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Some analysts worry that such a plot could already be in motion, even though they have found no evidence of it.

But al Qaeda plots are often months in the making. The 9/11 plot, which bin Laden and Khalid Sheik Mohammed dubbed "The Planes Operation," took more than two years to conceive and execute.

The bin laden files indicate that he and al Qaeda discussed not only attacks against commuter trains but plots against airplanes and airports, buildings, vehicle bombs and hits like the one in Mumbai in which terrorists used guns and small explosives to execute victims in cold blood, sources familiar with the documents told ABC News.

Now intelligence officials are studying the files to figure out if bin Laden's writings reflect simply his aspirations or plans to be put in motion.

Osama bin Laden's al-Qa'eda terror group, whose terrorist infrastructure is based in the province of Waziristan in northwest Pakistan, is known to be trying to acquire nuclear technology to use in terror attacks against the West. Other militant Islamist groups in Pakistan, such as the newly formed Pakistani Taliban, have also shown an interest in developing weapons with a nuclear capability, according to Western security officials. Security chiefs fear the mounting political instability in Pakistan will make it easier for militant Islamist groups to develop a primitive nuclear device. Pakistan is the world's only Muslim country with a nuclear weapons arsenal, which was developed during the 1990s by the rogue Pakistani nuclear scientist Dr Abdul Qadir (AQ) Khan. Dr Khan was placed under house arrest after he was accused of selling the blueprint for Pakistan's atom bomb to rogue states such as Libya, North Korea and Iran. But the restrictions on Dr Khan's detention have been eased since President Pervez Musharraf was forced from power.
Pakistan's nuclear arsenal is subject to stringent security safeguards put in place with the help of the American military when Mr Musharraf was in office. But there is mounting concern within Western security circles that Islamic terror groups will gain access to Pakistan's expertise in developing terrorist weapons containing nuclear material. "Islamist militant groups want to carry out terror attacks on a massive scale, and there is no better way for them to achieve that objective than to develop some form of primitive nuclear device," said a senior U.S. security official. The most likely terror device using nuclear material is a "dirty bomb", where conventional explosives are fitted with radioactive material.
Security experts believe the detonation of such a device in a city like London would provoke widespread panic and chaos, even though the area of contamination would be relatively small. Western security officials say they have uncovered evidence that a Pakistani based group was planning to attack a European target with such a device, although details of the planned attack have not been made public.
The sweeping victory of Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of murdered Pakistani leader Benazir Bhutto, in the presidential election at the weekend, has done little to reassure Western diplomats that the security situation in Pakistan is about to improve. Mr Zardari was jailed for nine years on corruption charges, and Western diplomats have little confidence in his ability to provide strong leadership. "Pakistan is in danger of becoming a failed state, and Mr Zardari's election victory is unlikely to improve the situation," said a Western diplomat.
Tensions grew last week when American special forces staged a cross-border incursion from Afghanistan into Pakistan's lawless tribal regions. They were targeting suspected al-Qaeda operatives, signalling a possible intensification of US efforts to disrupt militant safe havens in Pakistan.
Despite fury in Pakistan, US defence officials have said that the number of cross-border missions might grow in coming months in response to the growing militancy.