U.S. intelligence officials are “100 percent certain” that Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaeda terrorist network developed chemical and biological agents and conducted experiments with them prior to U.S. military action in Afghanistan last year, Newsweek magazine reported this week (see GSN, Oct. 22).

Al-Qaeda operatives also acquired a small amount of radiological material that could be intended for use in a “dirty bomb.”  It is not clear, however, whether the terrorist organization had built such a device, according to Newsweek.

Abu Zubaydah, an al-Qaeda leader held by the United States, told intelligence officials that U.S. newspapers provide the group with ideas for terrorist attacks, according to a classified U.S. intelligence report.  A newspaper report provided the inspiration for attempts to build a dirty bomb, he said (Newsweek, Nov. 25).

Meanwhile, an imprisoned Tunisian man told a Belgian radio journalist that he had planned to attack a U.S. Air Force base in eastern Belgium that reportedly stores nuclear warheads.

The interview with Nizar Trabelsi marks the first report of a specific plot to attack a nuclear installation in Europe.  Belgian and NATO officials have not said whether the base holds nuclear weapons, an accusation made by experts and nuclear activists.

Trabelsi said he had intended to drive explosives into a bunker that holds nuclear weapons (Straits Times, Nov. 17).

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