Terrorism and Nuclear Bombs

at the front of many minds: Could even worse be coming? If the terrorists
who attacked on September 11 had a crude nuclear bomb on the plane, it
wouldn’t have been just the twin towers—the whole lower half of
Manhattan could have been turned to rubble and ash, with hundreds of
thousands dead and injured. Unfortunately, that possibility was all too
real. Investigations after the attacks uncovered focused al Qaeda efforts
to get nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. The nuclear program
reported directly to Ayman al-Zawahiri, now the leader of the group, and
got as far as carrying out crude but sensible conventional explosive tests
for the bomb program in the Afghan desert. Weeks before 9/11, Osama bin
Laden and Zawahiri met with two senior Pakistani nuclear scientists and
discussed how al Qaeda could get nuclear weapons.

 Bulletin of Atomic Scientists 16th Sept 2021

 https://thebulletin.org/2021/09/twenty-years-after-9-11-terrorists-could-still-go-nuclear/