I’m sure this comes as a surprise to nobody, however. I found the following at Joel Rosenberg’s blog, and it’s worth a read:
As horrifying as these operations were, however, they pale in comparison to what al Qaeda has been praying and planning for a decade at least: acquiring weapons of mass destruction – ideally nuclear weapons – to be used against the United States to kill between four and ten million Americans.Asked in 1998, for example, if al-Qaeda had nuclear or chemical weapons, bin Laden told Time magazine that “acquiring weapons for the defense of Muslims is a religious duty. If I have indeed acquired these weapons, than I thank God for enabling me to do so.” The timing of that statement was significant, for 1998 was the year that Pakistan tested nuclear weapons.
