Al-Qaeda suspect worked at nuke plants...

Slightly scary, no???

The American arrested in a sweep of al-Qaeda members worked as a laborer at five nuclear plants in South Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland, federal officials said today.

Sharif Mobley had a "red badge" clearance, the highest level a laborer can obtain, while working on at the Salem-Hope Creek nuclear plants in Salem County, according to a spokesman from the local union of which he was a member.

Sharif was arrested last week with suspected al-Qaeda members in Yemen and officials said he then killed a guard while trying to escape from a hospital. He is under FBI investigation in Delaware. Law enforcement sources have said the investigation is terror-related.

In addition to PSEG's Salem-Hope Creek plants on Artificial Island, Mobley worked at the Peach Bottom, Limerick and Three Mile Island I plants in Pennsylvania and at Clavert Cliffs in Maryland, according to an e-mail from Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Sheehan said the commission is investigating what level of access Mobley had at the plants.

He was a contractor with the Local 222 chapter of the New Jersey Laborer's Union in Camden for projects in Salem County.

"He had full clearance to go where he needed to be," said chapter Business Manager Curt Jenkins. "You have no way of knowing what somebody's thinking. He went through the strenuous background checks that everybody else has to go through."