WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, admitted to those attacks and numerous others during a U.S. military hearing on Saturday, according to an edited transcript of the hearing released by the Pentagon Wednesday.

In a statement from him, read by a U.S. military representative, he said, "I was responsible for the 9/11 operation, from A to Z."

The transcript continues with the list of operations he was responsible for, including the Richard Reid shoe bomber attempt to blow up an airliner over the Atlantic Ocean, the Bali nightclub bombing in Indonesia, the 1993 World Trade Center attack and other attacks that were foiled. (Read transcript (PDF))

The latter included surveying the Panama Canal for an attack to destroy it and surveying suspension bridges and high-rises in New York and Chicago, Illinois, to bring them down as well.

The list of some 29 operations he was responsible for is followed by a shorter list of operations he was partially responsible for, including an assassination attempt against then-Pope John Paul II while he was visiting the Philippines. (Watch why Mohammed likened himself to George Washington Video)

In a later part of the statement, Mohammed likened himself to George Washington as a revolutionary.

The verbatim translation in the transcript is not always clear.

"If now we were living in the Revolutionary War and George Washington he being arrested through Britain," it reads. "For sure he, they would consider him enemy combatant."
Mohammed: Sorry I killed kids

He made no apologies for what he has done, but he did express remorse for the death of children in the September 11 attacks.

"I don't like to kill people," he said. "I feel very sorry they been killed kids in 9/11."

Transcripts of two other detainees considered "high-value" by the U.S. government -- Abu Faraj al-Libi (transcript (PDF)) and Ramzi Bin al-Shibh (transcript (PDF)) -- were also issued Wednesday. Their hearings were held Friday. The three are part of a group of 14 detainees once held in secret CIA prisons but moved to Guantanamo Bay by President Bush in September.

All three hearings were held at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The three-member military panel hearings, unlike similar hearings in the past, were closed to the media and to the detainees' lawyers because of fears the detainees might divulge classified information, according to Pentagon officials.

Officials have said the hearings would last between two and three hours each, but it could take days or weeks to know what transpired, because the findings must be approved by higher military authorities.

The 14 detainees have been given military advisers but they are offering no legal assistance. Detainees are also given only an unclassified summary of the evidence against them but are allowed to have witnesses called in from out of the country to testify in their favor.

The hearings, called combatant status review tribunals, determine whether a detainee should be classified as an enemy combatant by the president to make them eligible for a military trial.

The hearings for the 14 are expected to last through April, according to Pentagon officials.

Pentagon officials said a total of six high-value detainees have now gone through these hearings. The names of the three others and the transcripts of their hearings have not yet been released.

Per chi ha studiato i dati già disponibili, l'ammissione di Khalid Sheikh Mohammed non aggiunge granché, ma è un nuovo elemento che i sostenitori delle ipotesi alternative dovranno spiegare. Vista la creatività delle loro teorie, è indubbio che lo sapranno fare: ma sarà illuminante, per chi osserva il modus operandi della mentalità complottista, vedere quale spiegazione adotteranno.

hi-speed ha scritto:
Si è spiegato male
intendeva dire:

"La mentalità complottista di Khalid Sheikh Mohammed è un nuovo elemento che i sostenitori per chi ha studiato ma creatività spiegare quale delle loro teorie i dati già disponibili. La vista non aggiunge granché, è indubbio delle ipotesi che lo sapranno fare: ma sarà illuminante, per chi alternative della mentalità complottista dovranno chi osserva il modus operandi, vedere spiegazione adotteranno."


Hi-speed

In termini di ipotesi di complotto, inoltre, è interessante notare che l'autenticità della confessione è in realtà irrilevante: vera, falsa o estorta che sia, costituisce un altro documento "difficoltante", ossia un elemento che aumenta la difficoltà di realizzazione dell'ipotetica cospirazione.

costituisce un altro documento "difficoltante"

In termini di ipotesi di complotto, inoltre, è interessante notare che l'autenticità della confessione è in realtà irrilevante: vera, falsa o estorta che sia, costituisce un altro documento "difficoltante", ossia un elemento che aumenta la difficoltà di realizzazione dell'ipotetica cospirazione.

The hearings, which began last Friday, are being conducted in secret by the military as it tries to determine whether 14 alleged terrorist leaders should be declared "enemy combatants" who can be held indefinitely and prosecuted by military tribunals.

Hearings for six of the 14 have already been held. The military is not allowing reporters to attend the sessions and is limiting the information it provides about them, arguing that it wants to prevent sensitive information from being disclosed.

According to news reports, alleged al-Qaeda "mastermind" Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has now confessed to having planned the 9/11 attacks. Last Saturday (March 10), he supposedly told a tribunal panel of three military officers and a government-provided representative: "I was responsible for the 9/11 operation, from A to Z. I was the operational director for Sheikh Osama bin Laden for the organising, planning, follow-up and execution of the 9/11 operation." This was not all. In fact, he supposedly confessed (though not under oath) to involvement in a total of 31 attacks or planned attacks, including the 1993 WTC bombing and the 2002 Bali bombing.

However, there is one rather large problem with this story: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was reportedly killed on September 11, 2002, during an hours-long shootout with Pakistani security forces. Intelligence officials had supposedly tracked him down to an apartment in the southern part of Karachi. FBI and Pakistani ISI officials then surrounded the building, and were joined by hundreds of police vehicles and Pakistan Rangers.

The subsequent sequence of events that culminated in Mohammed's death has been reconstructed by the Asia Times Online, based upon reports from the Pakistani media, supplemented by information from intelligence sources.

Plain clothed officials had entered the building, and urged the people inside to evacuate. But a hand grenade was thrown, injuring two of them and forcing them to retreat. Troops then entered the building and a fierce gun battle ensued. Eleven suspected terrorists were captured and two were killed. After examining the two dead bodies, a female FBI official reportedly exclaimed: "You have killed Khalid Sheikh Mohammad." She then ordered that one of his fingers be cut off and taken away, presumably for DNA testing.

Mohammed's wife and child were taken away to an ISI safe house, where they identified one of the dead bodies as being that of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. After being kept in a private NGO mortuary for 20 days, it was buried in a graveyard in Karachi, under the surveillance of the FBI. However, according to the Asia Times Online, "News of the death of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was intentionally suppressed so that officials could play on the power of his name to follow up leads and contacts."

Then, six months later, Mohammed apparently returned to life, and was reported as having been arrested in Rawalpindi. After spending time in secret CIA prisons, he was moved last year to Guantánamo Bay. He is understood to have been tortured while in U.S. custody, including undergoing "waterboarding."

So what is the truth? Has the "9/11 mastermind" really confessed to his crimes? Or does the U.S. simply have some unfortunate guy of unknown identity in its custody, and they have tortured him into confessing that he is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and that he was the mastermind of 9/11?

Thursday, Mar. 15, 2007
Why KSM's Confession Rings False
By Robert Baer

It's hard to tell what the Pentagon's objective really is in releasing the transcript of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's confession. It certainly suggests the Administration is trying to blame KSM for al-Qaeda terrorism, leading us to believe we've caught the master terrorist and that al-Qaeda, and especially the ever-elusive bin Laden, is no longer a threat to the U.S.

But there is a major flaw in that marketing strategy. On the face of it, KSM, as he is known inside the government, comes across as boasting, at times mentally unstable. It's also clear he is making things up. I'm told by people involved in the investigation that KSM was present during Wall Street Journal correspondent Danny Pearl's execution but was in fact not the person who killed him. There exists videotape footage of the execution that minimizes KSM's role. And if KSM did indeed exaggerate his role in the Pearl murder, it raises the question of just what else he has exaggerated, or outright fabricated.

Just as importantly, there is an absence of collateral evidence that would support KSM's story. KSM claims he was "responsible for the 9/11 operation from A-Z." Yet he has omitted details that would support his role. For instance, one of the more intriguing mysteries is who recruited and vetted the fifteen Saudi hijackers, the so-called "muscle." The well-founded suspicion is that Qaeda was running a cell inside the Kingdom that spotted these young men and forwarded them to al-Qaeda. KSM and al-Qaeda often appear bumbling, but they would never have accepted recruits they couldn't count on. KSM does not offer us an answer as to how this worked.

KSM has also not offered evidence of state support to al-Qaeda, though there is good evidence there was, even at a low level. KSM himself was harbored by a member of Qatar's royal family after he was indicted in the U.S. for the Bojinka plot — a plan to bomb twelve American airplanes over the Pacific. KSM and al-Qaeda also received aid from supporters in Pakistan, quite possibly from sympathizers in the Pakistani intelligence service. KSM provides no details that would suggest we are getting the full story from him.

Although he claims to have been al-Qaeda's foreign operations chief, he has offered no information about European networks. Today, dozens of investigations are going on in Great Britain surrounding the London tube bombings on July 7, 2005. Yet KSM apparently knew nothing about these networks or has not told his interrogators about them.

The fact is al-Qaeda is too smart to put all of its eggs in one basket. It has not and does not have a field commander, the role KSM has arrogated. It works on the basis of "weak links," mounting terrorist operations by bringing in people on an ad hoc basis, and immediately disbanding the group afterwards.

Until we hear more, the mystery of who KSM is and what he was responsible for is still a mystery.

Robert Baer, a former CIA field officer assigned to the Middle East, is the author of See No Evil and, most recently, the novel Blow the House Down.

rivers ha scritto:
Senza contare che il nostro amico peloso e spettinato era stato dato per morto nel 2002.
[...]
Citazione:

However, there is one rather large problem with this story: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was reportedly killed on September 11, 2002, during an hours-long shootout with Pakistani security forces.

che ci hanno propinato con gli allarmi terrorismo bufala di questi anni: Sears Tower, Canary Wharf, gli edifici finanziari di New York.