LONDON - Documents giving details of how to build a nuclear bomb have been found in a Kabul house used by Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network.
A reporter from the Times newspaper discovered the partly burned papers in the looted building, which was abandoned by al Qaeda as Northern Alliance fighters overran the city.
Notes in Arabic, German, Urdu and English described the detonation of explosives to compress plutonium and trigger a thermonuclear reaction, the paper said.
The Times said it found other papers giving instructions on how to build smaller bombs and on the development of a "supergun".
The house had been used as a staging post for al Qaeda trainees before the fall of Kabul, it said.
"The documents lay strewn around the top floor, along with copies of aircraft magazines advertising flying instruction manuals, navigation instruments and flying charts."
Bin Laden, accused by the United States of masterminding the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, has claimed to have a nuclear bomb. His claim was dismissed at the weekend by British Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon.
Mr Hoon said that although the intelligence services believed al Qaeda might have got hold of nuclear material, they did not believe it had managed to build a nuclear bomb.
Meanwhile, CNN reports that coalition intelligence services have found a CD-ROM manual of bioterrorism, which has been distributed to al Qaeda members.
The manual gives the formulas for chemical and biological weapons that can be made from common ingredients.
Among the sections is one called "The Poisonous Letter", but there is no reference to anthrax.
- REUTERS
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