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Khalid Sheikh Mohammed confesses
to 9/11
Al Qaeda suspect confesses to
masterminding 9/11, other terror plots
and attacks.
BY OUR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT
March 15, 2007
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, believed
for long to be the mastermind of the
September 11, 2001, attacks, has
confessed to the crime at a military
hearing held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
A transcript released by the United
States Defence Department says
Mohammed also acknowledged full or
partial responsibility for over 30
other terror attacks or plots.
“I was responsible for the 9/11
operation, from A to Z,” Mohammed
said.
In a statement, Mohammed said his
actions were part of a military
campaign. “I am not happy that 3,000
had been killed in America,” he said.
“I feel sorry, even. I don’t like to
kill children.”
Though US officials had linked Khalid
Sheikh Mohammed to the attacks of
September 11, 2001, and to several
others, his confession was the first
time he spelled out in his own words
an array of global terror activities,
ranging from plans to bomb landmarks
in New York City and London to
assassination attempts against Jimmy
Carter and Bill Clinton, former
Presidents of the US, and Pope John
Paul II.
Some of the plots he claimed to plan,
including the attempt on Carter, had
not previously been publicly
disclosed.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed indicated in
the transcript that some of his
earlier statements to CIA
interrogators were the result of
torture. He said his statements at the
tribunal on Saturday were not made
under duress or pressure.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed spoke before a
combatant status review tribunal that
has the narrow task of determining
whether US President George W Bush had
properly designated him an enemy
combatant.
Mohammed’s confession will almost
certainly be used against him if and
when he is tried for war crimes by a
military commission.
Parts of the transcript were redacted
by the military, and there were
suggestions in it that Mohammed was
mistreated while in the custody of the
CIA after his arrest in Pakistan in
2003. He was transferred to military
custody at Guantanamo Bay in 2006.
Mohammed was aided during the tribunal
by a “personal representative” and not
an attorney.
While not contesting his guilt, Khalid
Sheikh Mohammed asked the United
States government “to be fair with
people.” He said many people who had
been arrested as terrorists were
innocent.
Mohammed's representative, an Air
Force lieutenant colonel, read a
statement on Mohammed's behalf “with
the understanding he may interject or
add statements if he needs to.”
In the statement, Mohammed described
himself as the “military operational
commander for all foreign operations
around the world” for Al-Qaida.
He also took responsibility for the
1993 bombing of the World Trade Center
and the bombing of a nightclub in
Bali, Indonesia.
Mohammed outlined a vast series of
plots that were not completed. Among
his targets, he said, were office
buildings in Chicago, Los Angeles and
New York; suspension bridges in New
York; the New York Stock Exchange “and
other financial targets after 9/11”;
the Panama Canal; British landmarks,
including Big Ben; buildings in
Israel; US embassies in Indonesia,
Australia and Japan; Israeli embassies
in India, Azerbaijan, the Philippines
and Australia; airliners around the
world; and nuclear power plants in the
United States.
He added that he was responsible for
an assassination attempt against
President Clinton in the Philippines.
Mohammed said he was not solely
responsible for an attempt on the life
of Pope John Paul II during a visit to
the Philippines. “I was not
responsible,” Mohammed said, “but
share.”
It is not yet clear how many of
Mohammed's expansive claims were
legitimate.
In 2005, the September 11 commission
had said Mohammed was noted for his
extravagant ambitions and, using his
initials, described his vision as
“theatre, a spectacle of destruction
with KSM as the self-cast star, the
superterrorist.”
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