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WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: No one’s claimed responsibility for the Saudi attacks, but a lot of people, including the secretary of state himself, are clearly pointing toward Al Qaeda.

CNN’s terrorism analyst Peter Bergen has been studying that group for many years. He wrote an important book himself, “Holy War, Inc.: Inside the Secret World of Osama Bin Laden,” a best seller. Peter joins us now from Washington.

For the Saudis it?s finally time to put up or shut up. This week?s suicide attacks in Riyadh demonstrate that al Qaeda is alive and well in Saudi Arabia. Indeed al Qaeda is to a large extent a Saudi organization: Saudi charities and individuals have been the most important funders of al Qaeda; fifteen of […]

The big question we can pose tonight: Is al Qaeda back stronger than ever, planning more attacks on the United States? Well, that possibility is being raised tonight. An Arab weekly magazine based in London is quoting a purported al Qaeda spokesman who says the organization has regrouped and is planning a new strike on […]

We live in sobering times, so why are the bestseller lists so punch-drunk? In the wake of the traumas of Sept. 11 and after, publishers have rushed out titles that stake strong ideological positions — particularly when delivered by someone with a modicum of fame — and watched the nonfiction lists lurch into line. How else to explain the runaway success of books such as Michael Moore’s “Stupid White Men” — now nearing a yearlong run on the New York Times list — or Michael Savage’s “Savage Nation”?

Washington, D.C.: You said on last night’s program that al Qaeda undoubtedly had the materials to make a dirty bomb. Tell us what led you to believe this, for example, do you have any intel or evidence? Can you tell us which nuclear species they undoubtedly possess? We have been hearing the basics on dirty […]

On April 8, the day before U.S. Marines toppled Saddam Hussein’s statue in Baghdad, an Algerian gave The Associated Press in Islamabad, Pakistan, a 27-minute tape. He said it came from Osama bin Laden.

The voice on the tape called on Muslims to rise up against Arab regimes that are “agents of America.” The tape called for suicide attacks on U.S. and U.K. targets to “avenge the innocent children” of Iraq.

BLITZER: In the months leading up to the war in Iraq, there was considerable concern that U.S. action could trigger terrorist retaliation. Now there’s a newly surfaced audiotape said to have been recorded by Osama bin Laden. The speaker calls for suicide attacks against U.S. and British interests and revolutions against Arab governments with ties to the United States.

It’s not often that history affords one the opportunity to run a grand experiment, but with the present war in Iraq, Bush administration officials are planning to run what may be the greatest historical experiment since the rebuilding of Europe after World War II. That’s because this war is not only about removing a nasty dictator who flouts U.N. resolutions and happens to be sitting on the second-largest oil reserves in the world; it is also about remaking the Middle East in our democratic image. At least that is the hope of the neoconservative thinkers who are the intellectual authors of Bush administration policy in the Middle East.

CONAN: This is TALK OF THE NATION. I’m Neal Conan in Washington. Join Ira Flatow on the next “Science Friday” for a look at the lasting environmental effects of oil pollution in the Middle East, plus an update on the smallpox vaccination program. That’s tomorrow on “Talk of the Nation/Science Friday.” Today we’re talking about […]

SOT ZACH ABUZA
I think one place that we have to look next is Bangladesh, which, so far, has remained off most people?s radar screens. It?s a large Muslim country, it?s a very poor country, and there are a lot of militant Islamists there.

SOT COFER BLACK
There is speculation about this, there is concern about this, but I will tell you that we do not have definitive information or intelligence suggesting that al Qaeda is reforming in Bangladesh.