 | « Back to article | Print this article |
Pakistani national Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, a prime suspect in the 9/11 terror attacks in the United States, has allegedly confessed to his role in the plot along with a slew of other strikes over the last several years.
"I was responsible for the 9/11 operation from A to Z," Mohammed was quoted as saying in transcripts put out by the US Department of Defence on Wednesday.
"I was the operational director for Sheikh Usama (Osama) Bin Laden for the organizing, planning, follow-up, and execution of the 9/11 operation," he said in a statement read during a closed door military proceedings at the Guantanamo Bay Naval station.
Mohammad and a few of his cohorts are under closed door military proceedings at the Guantanamo Bay Naval station in which no access to the media has been permitted.
The Pakistani national, known as KSM, has not only accepted involvement in the attacks of 9/11 but is also said to have confessed to the murder of The Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, and planning assassination attempts against Pope John Paul II, Presidents Bill Clinton and Pervez Musharraf.
Mohammad has said that he was also involved in planning the 2002 bombing of a Kenya beach resort frequented by Israelis and the failed missile attack on an Israeli passenger jet after it took off from Mombasa, Kenya and for the 2002 bombing of a nightclub in Bali, Indonesia, that killed 202 persons.
He also acknowledged his role in planned attacks that never took place like against the Sears Tower in Chicago, the Empire State Building, New York Stock Exchange, Panama Canal, the Big Ben and Heathrow Airport in London.
The Pentagon has supposedly blacked out a portion of the released transcript in which he is said to have confessed to the beheading of Daniel Pearl who was abducted in January 2002. Mohammad has long been a suspect in this gruesome killing.
In all, Mohammed said he was responsible for planning 28 attacks. His comments were included in a 26-page transcript released by the Pentagon, which blacked out some of his remarks.
Mohammad even compared Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden to George Washington saying, "He is doing the same thing. He is just fighting. He needs his independence."
"I am not happy that three thousand been killed in America. I feel sorry even. The language of any war in the world is killing. I mean the language of the war is victims,"
Mohammad has said in what has been passed off in some quarters as some kind of remorse to what took place on 9/11.
The Department of Defence has also put out the transcripts of two other hearings -- that of Abu Faraj al-Libi and Ramzi Binalshibh, both of whom have refused to attend the hearings.
Binalshibh, a Yemeni, is suspected of helping Mohammed with the September 11 attack plan while Al Libi, a Libyan, is the reported mastermind of two bombings in Pakistanin December 2003 that targeted Musharraf.
The military hearings began last Friday to determine whether 14 top terrorism suspects, including Mohammed, should be declared 'enemy combatants' who can be held indefinitely and prosecuted by military tribunals.