Al-Qaeda defiant over Bin Laden

Bin Laden (left) with Ayman al-Zawahiri

The second-in-command of the al-Qaeda movement says it will carry on its campaign against the United States, whatever happens to its leader Osama Bin Laden, reports say.

The Pakistani newspaper, Jang, says the Dr Aymen al-Zawahiri told it that al-Qaeda would follow the US "everywhere".

Another senior al-Qaeda figure, Saiful Adl, said the group was trying to "raise a military force armed with nuclear weapons", the paper says.

Jang did not say where the interviews were carried out.

Tel Aviv 'target'

Jang - Pakistan's biggest Urdu-language newspaper - says it interviewed three al-Qaeda leaders.

Bin Laden's claim that he has a nuclear bomb has been dismissed

It reports Saiful Adl as saying al-Qaeda had set up a force of suicide bombers to carry out missions in Israel. Carrying out missions against Israel was "part of their faith".

Dr al-Zawahiri said the movement's next target would be Tel Aviv.

Bin Laden recently told the mass-circulation Dawn newspaper in Pakistan that al-Qaeda group had nuclear weapons.

That has been dismissed by the US.

But last Friday, Washington confirmed that documents found in a Kabul building believed to have been used as a safe house by Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaeda network contained details about how to produce nuclear weapons.

US Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge said the information could have been found on the internet and it did not mean Bin Laden was able to build a nuclear device.