Files give glimpse into al-Qaida chief's mind

Trains, planes, ships remained prime target for terror boss

WASHINGTON - For Osama bin Laden, who spent years in seclusion with little to do but devise new ways to kill US citizens, the first big plans to emerge from his compound paint a picture of a terrorist who stuck to what he knew best and what worked before: planes, trains and ships.

The computer files hauled from his hideout in Pakistan have provided intelligence officials with an unparalleled glimpse into the mind of al-Qaida's founder. But perhaps most surprising about the first two attack scenarios to surface in those documents is just how predictable they were.