WASHINGTON, Dec 4: United States Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says he has no knowledge whether or not Al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden have been able to acquire plans or materiel to make atomic weapons.

The defence secretary was commenting at Tuesday’s Pentagon briefing on a report published in the morning’s Washington Post that Osama and

Al-Qaeda might have made greater strides than previously thought possible towards making a crude radiological weapon that would use conventional explosives to spread radioactivity over a wide area. Such a weapon is often referred to as a “dirty bomb”.

The paper said the conclusion was partly based on information gathered during interrogation of captured Al-Qaeda members or associates. In an interview published in Dawn last month, Osama was quoted as saying: “I wish to declare that if America used chemical or nuclear weapons against us, then we may retort with chemical and nuclear weapons ... We have the weapons as a deterrent.”

Defence Secretary Rumsfeld said there was a lot of intelligence information floating around that showed that Al Qaeda had an interest in weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. But he said he did not have any knowledge about whether the organization had actually acquired or not acquired such weapons.

The Washington Post report recalled that Pakistan had detained two of its nuclear scientists and was investigating them for links with Taliban and Al-Qaeda members. The paper also charged that Russia and Pakistan were considered the “two most likely sources of radioactive materiel for Al-Qaeda”.