The official said the latest revelations by Abu Zubaydah, al-Qaeda's operations director, did not come as a big surprise since the United States had already concluded that al-Qaeda was trying to build a so-called "dirty bomb."

"He said they knew how to do it," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "It's credible, it doesn't mean it's certain."

Radiological weapons are simply bombs with nuclear materials wrapped around them. When they explode, the radioactive material contaminates the area it is dispersed over.

They are not to be confused with nuclear weapons, far more complex devices that achieve vast destructive might through atomic fission or fusion.

The official would not comment on how close al-Qaeda had come to building radiological devices or whether it planned to use them against targets in the United States.

US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said people needed to recognize the heightened threat posed by the combination of weapons of mass destruction, terrorist states and global terrorist networks.

"What that means is that the impetus, the urgency of the global war on terrorism is underlined and punctuated with each of those various threats that occur from day to day," he told reporters after a meeting with visiting Polish Defense Minister Jerzy Szmajdzinski.

"Our margin for error as people has been shrinking," he said. "With two big oceans and friends to the north and the south for centuries, the United States could be fairly relaxed. Today, with the power and reach of those weapons one cannot be relaxed."

He said terrorists have proved willing to strap explosives to their bodies and blow themselves up in shopping malls, attempted to blow up airplanes with explosives-lined shoes, and flown airliners into tall buildings.

"It doesn't take much of a leap of imagination to recognize that there are people on this earth who are perfectly willing to go about the world killing thousands, more than thousands, of innocent men women and children," he said.

The disclosure about al-Qaeda's "dirty bomb," first reported by US television networks CBS and NBC, were the latest sign that Abu Zubaydah is talking to interrogators.

He was seriously wounded in the raid that end in his capture with other al-Qaeda suspects in Faisalabad, Pakistan on March 27.

Initially was allowed to recover from bullet wounds to the groin before being subjected to interrogation.

US officials have described him a "big fish" in the network led by Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader accused of masterminding the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States.

A Palestinian, Abu Zubaydah was believed to be in charge of al-Qaeda terrorist operations, and its top recruiter, roles that make him a potential gold mine of information.

Last week, in the first indication that he was talking to interrogators, officials said he was the source in part of information that prompted US Attorney General John Ashcroft to warn of an "unsubstantiated" threat that al-Qaeda operatives were planning attacks on US financial institutions.

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