United Nations ? There is a “high probability” that al-Qaida will attempt an attack with a weapon of mass destruction in the next two years, the U.S. government said in a report Monday.

The report to a U.N. Security Council committee monitoring sanctions against the terrorist group did not say where the Bush administration believed such an attack might be launched.

But the United States said it believed that despite recent setbacks, “al-Qaida maintains the ability to inflict significant casualties in the United States with little or no warning.”

“The al-Qaida network will remain for the foreseeable future the most immediate and serious terrorism threat facing the United States,” the report said. “Al-Qaida will continue to favor spectacular attacks but also may seek softer targets of opportunity, such as banks, shopping malls, supermarkets, and places of recreation and entertainment.”

The report said the terrorist organization “will continue its efforts to acquire and develop chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) weapons.”

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said last year that searches of more than 40 sites in Afghanistan used by al-Qaida yielded documents, diagrams and material that showed “an appetite for weapons of mass destruction.”

But it did not appear al-Qaida had succeeded in making such weapons before the U.S.-led military campaign began in October 2001.

The report said FBI investigations since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks “have revealed an extensive and widespread militant Islamic presence in the United States.”

“We strongly suspect that several hundred of these extremists are linked to al-Qaida,” it said.