US considered nuking Afghanistan after 9/11: report

The United States government considered using nuclear weapons against Afghanistan following the September 11, 2001 attacks, claims a report published by a leading German news magazine.

An aide to former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder told Der Spiegel in an interview that the US administration of President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney 'played through all possibilities', including a nuclear option.

"The papers were written," Michael Steiner, Schroder's political advisor, was quoted as saying in the report.

"They had really played through all possibilities," he said, confirming that that a nuclear strike was also on the cards after the Al-Qaeda attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York and Washington.

Steiner is a senior German diplomat who has been serving the German Ambassador to India since March 2012.