The notes, written mostly in error-filled English with a few passages in Arabic, provide specific instruction in activities such as setting up a safe house, buying a plane ticket and establishing a "good cover story." General in nature, the notes do not mention any specific terrorist actions, but they do warn that Muslims "are facing a war of security" as they "target kuffar," the Arabic word for nonbelievers.

No detail appears too small to have escaped attention, down to the "normal" underwear an agent should wear and the wrist on which he should put his watch. The notes place painstaking emphasis on covering up telltale signs that an agent is an Islamic fundamentalist, advising recruits to shave their beards one week before traveling to a targeted country and engage in such forbidden practices as playing music to "show that you are not a Islamic person."

The documents offer an unusual window into the clandestine lives of al Qaeda operatives sent to the West to carry out secret missions, suggesting the meticulous preparation that went into setting up terrorist cells like those that are suspected in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States. They also suggest the global aspirations of bin Laden's terrorist network, indicating how his recruits living in Afghanistan were assigned to infiltrate targets around the world.

Several local residents who accompanied two American reporters to the al Qaeda house where the notes were found identified the man who lived there as Julaibeeb, an Arab bodyguard for bin Laden who they said received a leg injury in 1998 when the United States bombed a bin Laden training camp in the Afghan city of Khost. Their claims could not be confirmed, and there was nothing in the notes to indicate who took them, who provided the information or when they were made.

The notes are the latest documentary traces found in places abandoned by the al Qaeda network and the ruling Taliban militia, which hosted bin Laden. After the Taliban fled Kabul last month, reporters found documents in houses there describing how to make weapons such as suitcase bombs. The notes found today, however, appear to be the first discovered here that instruct adherents to go to the West to carry out their activities, and could add to the evidence linking al Qaeda to the Sept. 11 attacks.

The instructions in the notes are also similar to the techniques described by a defector from bin Laden's network during a New York trial this year of four bin Laden associates convicted of plotting the 1998 bombing of two U.S. embassies in East Africa.

The notes, ripped out of an ordinary lined-paper notebook, with several pages torn in pieces, were found scattered on the floor of a housing compound used by al Qaeda in this village about six miles outside the city of Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan. Thirty-five pages in all, they read at times like a travel guide for would-be terrorists, dispensing practical advice about hotels (avoid those frequented by drug dealers) and obtaining visas.

But the notes are also a primer on al Qaeda tradecraft, detailing techniques for tracking down and reporting back on a target. One checklist identifies the goals for an agent: find a place for a secret meeting, locate a "dead box," carry out "secret watching," and finally, "distroy the target."

Jalalabad has served as a major center of operations for bin Laden and al Qaeda since 1996, when the strict Islamic Taliban militia came to power and the Saudi-born fugitive left his exile in Sudan to make his home here. Just across the dusty street from the housing compound where the notes were found is another complex where bin Laden is reported to have spent the night and where many of his recruits from Arab countries and Chechnya lived.

Several neighbors interviewed today said the al Qaeda fighters fled with their families to their mountain stronghold in the nearby White Mountains a few days after Sept. 11. Abandoned baby bottles, scattered shoes and other evidence of their hasty departure can be found throughout the housing compound. Many of the men who lived there are believed to be holed up in the mountain valley of Milawa, where anti-Taliban forces launched an offensive this week against the heavily fortified al Qaeda network of caves.

An estimated 1,000 bin Laden loyalists are fighting in the mountains, according to field commanders who say they are the same al Qaeda troops who lived freely among them in Jalalabad. The compounds here in Farm Hada appear capable of housing hundreds in mud houses surrounded by a high wall.

The house in which the notes were found was typically modest, consisting of a main room, bedroom and kitchen. Squash is still growing on a vine outside, while inside little remains besides scattered papers on the floor. This morning, several U.S. warplanes flew directly overhead, on their way to bombing runs against al Qaeda in the mountains.

The notes can be roughly divided into two categories: instructions on how to go after a target, and tips for avoiding getting caught.

One page, with the Arabic heading "By the name of Allah, the most compassionate and most merciful," is a checklist of "how to observe a house and Perticular Target," recommending a survey of how many cars and people are around the house, how well it is secured and how to travel to and from the place.

"We have to watch our target by microscopic eyes," the notes say.

But al Qaeda expected more than just simple logistics. The notes say that agents in the West were also required to collect vast amounts of information about their "watching area," including "heretic habits," population, security measures, military presence, local religious practices and extensive political information about parties, "minority government organisation" and Islamic organizations.

Once assembled, all such information about the target was to be returned in detailed reports, and the notes dwell at some length on the proper form and contents of an approved scouting report, down to the formatting of the title page. Among the information demanded: how many "pepols in the ground [named], what kind of technologi is used in the mission . . . cover story -- any mistake." Photographs and maps of the target should also be included, as well as a notation as to whether the report was "normal" or "urgent."

Concerns about how to travel under a false identity and successfully infiltrate the alien culture of the West take up much of the notes. Those traveling with forged passports were advised to have a supporting document with the same name, as well as knowledge about the country being visited. "If you have any forge nationality and passports you have to know" the language, important cities, a telephone number, the name of the president, its population, currency and "interior problem," the notes instruct. Most important, though, is a "good cover story why you carry this passport."

Even the process of buying a plane ticket is not left to chance. Instructions include buying the ticket in person, wearing European-style clothes and selecting a popular tourist destination as the first stop en route to the real target.

Finally, there are many tips on passing for a Westerner. Clothes should be used, not new and therefore "suspicious," but they should match well. And under no circumstances should the agent bring along any clothing made in countries associated with Islamic terrorism.

Deodorant is meant to be used directly on the body, the notes advise, rather than on clothing, while watches should be worn on the left wrist. Rings should be made of gold, even though Islamic fundamentalists say it violates religious law for men to wear gold. It is important to know the difference between perfume and after-shave, the notes say, and even more significant to know the difference between perfume for men and that for women. "If you will use the female perfume so you will be in big trouble."