Al-Qaida nuclear threat

AL-QAIDA terror chief Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has obtained a nuclear weapon or dirty bomb and is preparing for attack, a US newspaper claimed yesterday.

The threat has allegedly been included in several classified reports since December but experts are still treating it with caution.

Analysts cannot believe al Qaida would not use a nuclear device immediately if it had one, the Washington Times reports.

Intelligence suggests the weapon is in Afghanistan, where Zarqawi apparently runs a terrorist camp., Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant, has been leading attacks against allied forces in Iraq and his al-Qaida organisation has been blamed for a string of beheadings, bombings and mass shootings in the country.

Meanwhile, the bodies of more than 50 people have been recovered from the Tigris River in Iraq, said President Jalal Talabani.

The bodies were believed to have been those of hostages seized in the Madain region earlier this month.

In a separate discovery, another 19 Iraqis were shot to death and left lined up against a bloodstained wall in a soccer stadium in the town of Haditha, about 140 miles northwest of Baghdad.

Shi'ite leaders and government officials claimed last week that Sunni militants had abducted as many as 100 Shiite residents from the area, but when Iraqi forces moved into Madain, they found no captives.

In Haditha, residents said they believed the victims all men in civilian clothes were soldiers abducted by insurgents as they headed home for a holiday.