Terror Timepiece?

Leaked files reportedly exhibit a particular Casio watch was noticed with guess by US officials as a probable pointer of militant links. So how did the modest F-91W find itself in such a position?

They sell for as small as 7 ($12), are H2O resistant and have a battery life of roughly 7 years. Just 3 things that have helped make the Casio F-91W a universal bestseller.

Now this unassuming, black, plastic, digital watch has found itself in the headlines for a not similar reason. Leaked US papers reportedly suggested interrogators at Guantanamo Bay that receive of the F-91W could be a couple to bombing by al-Qaeda.

The Guardian, that performed the leaked files, reports that wearing a has been a contributing reason to the one after another internment of a few prisoners, with more than 50 hostage reports referring to the watch.

It's an astonishing turn in the story of this unpretentious timepiece, launched by Casio in 1991. The Japanese firm was a of the initial to create digital watches, apropos important for them in the 1980s, along with calculators and electronic keyboards.

The F-91W now valid popular, not smallest since it was inexpensive and reliable. The firm does not let go sales total is to watch, but says it was - and still is - a "huge seller" all over the world.

"It sells globally, from Russia to Asia," says Tim Gould, head of selling at Casio UK. "It has consistently remained renouned since it is functional, affordable and accurate. It's as elementary as that."

Its pattern has not altered since it was initial brought out 20 years ago. It is a "modest masterpiece", says pattern censor Stephen Bayley, a of the founders of the Design Museum in London.

It's the typical Casio shape, with 3 buttons on the side to use its features. These add a stopwatch, second timer, warning and the choice of an hourly time "beep".

For many adults in the UK, it was the initial watch they owned and many will have mislaid hours of their girl personification the diversion where you attempted to hindrance the stopwatch on a second dead. Youngsters are still shopping them.

"The principal marketplace is still amid young people," says a orator for Zeitgeist Watches in Liverpool. "It's since they are inexpensive and affordable, they're not a oppulance piece that they can't afford."

In new years there has been a resurgence in recognition amid trendsetters in the UK. The pattern has moreover become a bit of a collectors' item, with singular editions in stepping up urge but still usually costing around 20.

"It's simply the typical digital watch," says Simon Mellor of Retro Vintage Watches. "In the final few years there's been an enlarge in urge for singular editions, with frames that are immature or bullion instead of the standard blue. we regard this is down to schooldays nostalgia. I'm 28 and we had a when we was younger. we desired it."

Any "cool" allure the watch has in particular countries is nothing to do with Casio.

"We intentionally do not marketplace it as anything cold or trendy," says Mr Gould. "It's not supercilious and doesn't fake to be anything it's not. It just a basic watch that is arguable and great value."

Its this warding off to be cold that has done it cool, says Bayley.

"[London's] Hoxton hipsters suffer the way a 7 cosmetic watch refutes all that snobbismo, without the nuisance of sacrificing a arguable timepiece. And it embodies that nice enigmatic strife that adds an additional dimension of value.

"It's inexpensive sufficient to be disposable but, unless you strike it with a hammer, it will never stop."