PROFILE : Al-Qaeda 'kingpin'
Mohammed reportedly admitted to a long list of attacks or plots. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has admitted being responsible "from A to Z" for the 11 September 2001 attacks on the United States, according to the Pentagon.
At a hearing to determine whether he was an "enemy combatant" who should remain in detention at Guantanamo Bay, he also reportedly admitted to a role in 30 other plots including planned attacks on Big Ben and Heathrow airport in London.
Regarded as one of the most senior operatives in Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, he was captured in Pakistan in 2002 and was sent to the US detention centre in Cuba last year.
Mr Mohammed could, as a result of his admission, face criminal charges and eventually a trial before a special military tribunal.
He has already been indicted, since 1996, with plotting to blow up 11 or 12 American airliners flying from south-east Asia to the United States in January, 1995.
According to the transcripts released, the self-proclaimed head of al-Qaeda's military committee admitted to:
the organising, planning, follow-up and execution of the 9/11 operation
responsibility for the earlier, 1993 attack on the World Trade Center in New York, the bombing of nightclubs in Bali in 2002 and a Kenyan hotel in the same year
responsibility for the failed attempt by the so-called shoe bomber, Richard Reid, to bring down an American plane
plots to attack Heathrow Airport, Canary Wharf and Big Ben in London, to hit targets in Israel, and to blow up the Panama Canal
a plot to hit towers in the US cities of Los Angeles, Seattle, Chicago and the Empire State Building in New York, and to attack US nuclear power stations
plots to assassinate the late Pope John Paul II and former US President Bill Clinton
He apparently referred to the killing in Pakistan of kidnapped US journalist Daniel Pearl - which he has been accused of carrying out personally - but it is not clear whether he was admitting responsibility.
Reward
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was born in Kuwait in either 1964 or 1965, but his family is from Baluchistan, a Pakistani province bordering Afghanistan.
He is said to be fluent in Arabic, English, Urdu and Baluchi.
He graduated in 1986 from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in the United States.
In the late 1980s he moved to Pakistan's north-western city of Peshawar, where he became acquainted with Bin Laden.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed first achieved notoriety with the discovery of the plot to blow up US airliners over the Pacific in 1995 - known as Operation Bojinka.
The plan was reportedly foiled when police found incriminating computer files during their investigation into a separate plot to assassinate the Pope.
11 September
After the 2001 attacks on Washington and New York, which killed more than 3,000 people, US officials raised the reward on his head.
Terror mastermind captured
How al-Qaeda 'chief' caught
At a hearing to determine whether he was an "enemy combatant" who should remain in detention at Guantanamo Bay, he also reportedly admitted to a role in 30 other plots including planned attacks on Big Ben and Heathrow airport in London.
Regarded as one of the most senior operatives in Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, he was captured in Pakistan in 2002 and was sent to the US detention centre in Cuba last year.
Mr Mohammed could, as a result of his admission, face criminal charges and eventually a trial before a special military tribunal.
He has already been indicted, since 1996, with plotting to blow up 11 or 12 American airliners flying from south-east Asia to the United States in January, 1995.
According to the transcripts released, the self-proclaimed head of al-Qaeda's military committee admitted to:
the organising, planning, follow-up and execution of the 9/11 operation
responsibility for the earlier, 1993 attack on the World Trade Center in New York, the bombing of nightclubs in Bali in 2002 and a Kenyan hotel in the same year
responsibility for the failed attempt by the so-called shoe bomber, Richard Reid, to bring down an American plane
plots to attack Heathrow Airport, Canary Wharf and Big Ben in London, to hit targets in Israel, and to blow up the Panama Canal
a plot to hit towers in the US cities of Los Angeles, Seattle, Chicago and the Empire State Building in New York, and to attack US nuclear power stations
plots to assassinate the late Pope John Paul II and former US President Bill Clinton
He apparently referred to the killing in Pakistan of kidnapped US journalist Daniel Pearl - which he has been accused of carrying out personally - but it is not clear whether he was admitting responsibility.
Reward
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was born in Kuwait in either 1964 or 1965, but his family is from Baluchistan, a Pakistani province bordering Afghanistan.
He is said to be fluent in Arabic, English, Urdu and Baluchi.
He graduated in 1986 from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in the United States.
In the late 1980s he moved to Pakistan's north-western city of Peshawar, where he became acquainted with Bin Laden.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed first achieved notoriety with the discovery of the plot to blow up US airliners over the Pacific in 1995 - known as Operation Bojinka.
The plan was reportedly foiled when police found incriminating computer files during their investigation into a separate plot to assassinate the Pope.
11 September
After the 2001 attacks on Washington and New York, which killed more than 3,000 people, US officials raised the reward on his head.
Terror mastermind captured
How al-Qaeda 'chief' caught
They believe the Kuwaiti co-ordinated the attacks, and transferred money that was used to pay for the hijackings.
Mr Mohammed is the uncle of Ramzi Yousef, who was convicted in 1997 of bombing the World Trade Center four years earlier.
His involvement in the killing of Daniel Pearl has been rumoured since 2002.
An Arabic journalist smuggled in to interview him that year said Khalid Sheikh Mohammed had given him a tape showing the beheading of Pearl.
In September 2006, Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf alleged in his memoirs that Mr Mohammed had either himself killed Pearl or at the least taken part in his murder.
Military planner
The Kuwaiti militant's arrest marked one of the most important breakthroughs in the fight against al-Qaeda.
Terrorism and al-Qaeda expert Rohan Gunaratna described him as a "highly experienced organiser of terrorist attacks across international borders, one of an elite group capable of such events".
It is not just the Americans and the Pakistanis who wanted information from him.
The French magistrate Judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere issued an arrest warrant for him in connection with a suicide bomb attack on a synagogue in the Tunisian resort island of Djerba in 2002.
And the Australians have been interested, because of their investigation into the Bali bombing in 2002 in which 202 people died.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
posted by jackaranda at 4:31 pm
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