A SENIOR al-Qaida lieutenant has told American interrogators Osama bin Laden is close to making a crude nuclear bomb.

He has also said terrorists are planning to attack US banks and shopping centres.

Pakistani forces captured al-Qaida strategist Abu Zubaydah and seized his personal diary a month ago.

After recovering from gunshot wounds to his leg, he has been undergoing interrogation by the CIA and slowly releasing information about al-Qaida activities.

"Some of what he says is hard to confirm or deny, but other information is proving to have some accuracy," a source told the New York Times.

Zubaydah is a 31-year-old Saudi-born Palestinian who speaks English. He is believed to have been in charge of al-Qaida terrorist operations and to have overseen the training of the terrorists who carried out the September 11 attacks in New York and Washington.

In the past week, US authorities have issued two "unsubstantiated" terrorist alerts based on information from Zubaydah.

The first suggested banks were in danger. That was followed by a general warning that supermarkets and shopping malls could be targeted.

Zubaydah also told his interrogators that bin Laden was planning to make a so-called "dirty bomb".

Such bombs combine standard explosives with radioactive material and are capable of spreading poisonous gases over a wide area.

 The 300 Taliban and al-Qaida prisoners at Camp X-Ray in Cuba will soon move out of the chain-link cells that prompted an outcry from human rights groups, and into more solid structures with indoor plumbing.

Officials at the US Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay said relocating the captives into the new Camp Delta prison was imminent.

Sunday Times (WA)