Top Secret Terror Files Left on UK Train

A "very senior intelligence official" who works worked at the Cabinet Office, left a seven-page document setting out the latest Government assessment on the Islamist terror network al Qaida. Nice. Guardian

A police investigation has been launched after secret Government documents were left on a train.

It is understood that the two documents - both marked "Secret" - relate to al Qaida in Pakistan and the security situation in Iraq and were lost on Wednesday.

The documents were eventually handed to the BBC's security correspondent Frank Gardner, who reported details of the security breach.

Yeaaaaaah, hand it over to the BBC....

The envelope was in fact picked up by a fellow passenger, who looked inside and found a seven-page document setting out the latest Government assessment on the Islamist terror network al Qaida, along with a "top secret and in some cases damning" assessment of Iraq's security forces, said Gardner.

The al Qaida document, commissioned jointly by the Foreign Office and Home Office, was classified "UK top secret", he said. It was so sensitive that each page was numbered and marked "For UK, US, Canadian and Australian eyes only".

The second document, on Iraq, was commissioned by the Ministry of Defence.