US says no evidence that bin Laden has nuclear weapons

The US does not believe there is credible evidence that Osama bin Laden has nuclear or chemical weapons, the US National Security Adviser, Dr Condoleezza Rice, said yesterday.

However, they are "taking very seriously his desire to have those capabilities," she told CNN. Dr Rice was responding to claims by bin Laden in an interview with a Pakistani paper, Dawn, that he already has such weapons.

But the US has bombed some sites in Afghanistan that could have been involved in producing chemical, biological or radiological weapons, the Defence Secretary, Mr Donald Rumsfeld, said.

Other such sites have been left alone, and others likely have not been found, Mr Rumsfeld said.

"If we had good information on a chemical or biological development area, we would do something about it," Mr Rumsfeld said on CBS. "It is not an easy thing to do. We have every desire in the world to prevent the terrorists from using these capabilities." The New York Times reported yesterday that the US had identified three possible chemical or biological weapons sites in Afghanistan used by al-Qaeda, and had avoided bombing them.

President George Bush marked Veterans' Day by attending a prayer breakfast at the New York Armoury and then a moving ceremony at Ground Zero where the names of over 80 nations who lost citizens there on September 11th were listed and their flags handed over - a powerful underlining of the administration's message that this is not just the US's war.

On a day that also marked the second month since the attacks, some 3,000 bodies are still missing on the site.

On Saturday, in his first appearance before the General Assembly of the United Nations, Mr Bush outlined specific tasks for member nations: to crack down on financing for terrorists; deny them sanctuary; close their camps and seize the operators. "These obligations are urgent and they are binding on every nation with a place in this chamber," the President told the gathering of some 40 heads of government and 100 foreign ministers. Mr Bush also said on Saturday he does not want the Northern Alliance to take the Afghan capital, Kabul, in order to preserve the city as a base for power-sharing among different tribes in the new Afghanistan.

It was the most explicit statement yet by the President of a policy that has been criticised here for constraining bombing of the front lines north of the city.

Mr Bush made his comments following a meeting with Gen Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan who had been seeking a series of incentives, including economic aid and the release of F-16 fighters sold to Pakistan in the 1980s but withheld after the country developed nuclear weapons.

He did not get the planes, but Mr Bush added new money to an aid package, bringing the total to $1 billion. And, hoping to consolidate moderate Arab opinion behind his coalition, Mr Bush also said more emphatically than he ever has that there should be a Palestinian state, and for the first time referred to that state with the name the Arabs use themselves. "We are working toward the day when two states - Israel and Palestine - live peacefully together within secure and recognised borders," he told the UN.

Meanwhile, on the home front the FBI says it now suspects a home-grown source for anthrax attacks and that the same person, a solitary attacker, sent three anthrax-tainted letters so far identified. That person was probably an adult male who may have worked in a laboratory or had a scientific background. He had probably purchased anthrax vaccine or antibiotics, the FBI said.

Trace amounts of anthrax have been discovered in the offices of three more senators and a house member in congressional buildings where earlier tests had detected anthrax.

Criticism of the decision of the Attorney General, Mr John Ashcroft, to allow the police to listen in to conversations between terrorism suspects and their lawyers has continued to mount with the Democratic chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Mr Patrick Leahy, accusing the Attorney General of bad faith and promising to hold hearings on the issue. The American Bar Association president, Mr Robert Hirshon, said the new rules "run squarely afoul" of the Constitution.

But Mr Ashcroft was adamant they would only affect tiny numbers. "We're talking . . . about 13 prisoners nationally in the United States of America whom we have reason to believe would be seeking to continue with criminal activity while they are in jail," Mr Ashcroft said on Friday on CNN's Larry King Live.