The article 'Al Qaeda's Nightmare Scenario Emerges' thinks OBL is still alive, and that, realizing AQ has been badly damaged, is planning to go out with a bang:

AQ has explosives expertise that is unsurpassed in non-military circles. It gets military-grade C4 charges from China and Iran; it employs Hezbollah and Hamas guerillas trained in the fine arts of detonation devices... and it has brainwashed legions of men who are willing to die for the cause...

Who's supplying the material and expertise? North Korea, and, surprisingly, our ally in the war against al Qaeda, Pakistan. Pyongyang--with a lot of help from China (which is supplying key chemicals to separate plutonium from depleted uranium) and Pakistan (which gave North Korea its uranium enrichment centrifuges and tutored its nuclear scientists)--will be able to churn out Coke cans of plutonium at the rate of one per week by the end of March...

In a worst case scenario, al Qaeda could construct a crude but effective nuclear device in weeks, if not a month, from Hezbollah C4, North Korean plutonium, and a little nuclear expertise from disaffected Pakistani scientists...

Add to this troubling possibility the fact that the terror group has resorted to the use of seafaring vessels to move its people around, and now has a fleet large and diverse enough that one or two could seamlessly move into a large harbor or congested waterway undetected, and a picture emerges of an unparalleled potential threat to the global economy from the paralysis that could be caused by a crude plutonium bomb exploding in the belly of an al Qaeda ship with bin Laden onboard...

But the target closest to bin Laden's heart likely remains a seaport that would allow him to go to his Allah in the belly of the Eagle--perhaps on the western seaboard of the United States...

There's more on the Iraq-AQ connection and the ships in 'Direct Links Detailed: Three Prisoners in N. Iraq Outline Links Between Al Qaeda and Iraq':

Two years ago, he says he was hired by an Iraqi intelligence officer, Othman Salman Daoud, to smuggle 30 refrigerator "motors" - which I took to mean "compressors" - from Iraq to Iran, where they were handed over to men he describes as Afghan members of al Qaeda. He was paid $10,000 each for the items, which usually contain the refrigerant gas Freon, but, in this case, contained something more mysterious. Shihab Ali was warned it was dangerous to himself, and to any children he might hope to have...

[Further, he says] he and a partner were given $16 million to go to the Gulf and buy some large ships, equip them with 500 kilos of high-explosive, and set sail under Iranian flags. The crews would slip away in motorboats after being replaced with men willing to commit suicide, who would then enter Kuwaiti waters, according to Shihab Ali, and ram the ships into American tankers or military vessels.

Today's 'Three mystery ships are tracked over suspected 'weapons' cargo' says:

Three giant cargo ships are being tracked by US and British intelligence on suspicion that they might be carrying Iraqi weapons of mass destruction...

Each with a deadweight of 35,000 to 40,000 tonnes, the ships have been sailing around the world's oceans for the past three months while maintaining radio silence in clear violation of international maritime law.

The article '15 Freighters Believed to Be Linked To Al Qaeda' has background information on AQ's ships and the shipping industry. 'Security at sea: Ship owners, insurers under pressure' has more background. The article 'Croatia searchs ship carrying explosives allegedly bound for Iraq' from 10/02 doesn't mention WMD.