Documents from Osama bin Laden’s compound, declassified Wednesday by the Director of National Intelligence, include a jarringly ordinary job application used by al-Qaida.
The application, which asks potential al-Qaida recruits for their age and level of education, then goes on to ask much more jihad-themed questions. Some of those include, as excerpted from the DNI’s English translation:
“Do any of your family or friends work with the government? If so, would he/she be willing to cooperate with or help us?”
“List the types of passports you possess. Did you use a real or forged passport for your current travel?”
“Do you wish to execute a suicide operation?”
And, “Who should we contact in case you became a martyr?”
The documents, all translated into English, provide a rare public look into al-Qaida’s day-to-day operations while bin Laden was in hiding in Pakistan. (RELATED: Bin Laden’s Secret Stash Included 9/11 Truthers, Delta Force Video Game)
Those operations including a reassuringly inept facility with Microsoft Word. A scan of the Arabic original contains formatting errors that are common among casual users of the software.
That Bin Laden job application has a typical Microsoft Word flaw: putting chart headers right above the line break pic.twitter.com/3bBOh20Ros
— Ivan Plis (@ivanplis) May 20, 2015
The document also includes an attractive Word-enabled watermark bearing the logo of al-Qaida’s Security Committee. Here, the line asking applicants for the date of their arrival in “the land of jihad” is partly cut off.
This cutesy formatting, with the watermark and the line falling out of the box, is all too much #binladensbookshelf pic.twitter.com/lzxlz1oa6s
— Ivan Plis (@ivanplis) May 20, 2015
The header also instructs applicants to “please write clearly and legibly.”
Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.