March 14, 2007
DOCUMENT:

Bin Laden Deputy In Gitmo Confession

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed details al-Qaeda bomb, assassination plots

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Bin Laden Deputy In Gitmo Confession

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MARCH 14--An Osama bin Laden deputy confessed to masterminding the September 11 attacks and a host of other terrorist plots during a military hearing held Saturday at the Guantanamo Bay naval base. The admissions from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed are detailed in a partially redacted transcript released late today by the Department of Defense. According to the unclassified transcript, a copy of which you'll find below, Mohammed, who described himself as bin Laden's 'operational director,' admitted his role in planning the various al-Qaeda attacks, noting, 'I was responsible for the 9/11 Operation, from A to Z.' He also confessed orchestrating the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and so-called shoe bomber Richard Reid's December 2001 bid to 'down two American airplanes.' Many of the plots Mohammed, pictured at right, took credit for planning never occurred, but were of a similarly grand scale as the September 11 attacks. Mohammed said that he plotted second wave attacks targeting U.S. skyscrapers like the Empire State Building and the Sears Tower, as well as the assassinations of Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, Pope John Paul II, and Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf. Mohammed's target list emerged at the end of the March 10 hearing, which was held to determine whether he should be declared an 'enemy combatant' and prosecuted before a military tribunal. Mohammed's confession, made 'without duress,' was read into the record by an unnamed Air Force lieutenant colonel acting as the al-Qaeda operative's 'personal representative.' After the confession was read, Mohammed made a remarkable oral statement in which he claimed that he was not trying to be a 'hero' by detailing all his various terror plots. He also compared bin Laden to George Washington and referred to his fundamentalist compatriots as 'jackals fighting in the night' against America. Mohammed concluded by referring to the inevitability of combat. 'You know never stopping war. This is life. But if who is enemy combatant and who is not?' (26 pages)

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