Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (sometimes also spelled Shaikh; also known by at least 50

pseudonym A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true name ( orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individu ...

s; born March 1, 1964 or April 14, 1965) is a Pakistani Islamist militant held by the United States at the

Guantanamo Bay detention camp The Guantanamo Bay detention camp ( es, Centro de detención de la bahía de Guantánamo) is a United States military prison located within Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, also referred to as Guantánamo, GTMO, and Gitmo (), on the coast of Gua ...

under

terrorism Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...

-related charges. He was named as "the principal architect of the

9/11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commerci ...

" in the ''

9/11 Commission Report ''The 9/11 Commission Report'' (officially the ''Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States)'' is the official report into the events leading up to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. It was prepa ...

''. Sheikh Mohammed was a member of Osama bin Laden's

al-Qaeda Al-Qaeda (; , ) is an Islamic extremist organization composed of Salafist jihadists. Its members are mostly composed of Arabs, but also include other peoples. Al-Qaeda has mounted attacks on civilian and military targets in various countr ...

organization, leading al-Qaeda's

propaganda Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded ...

operations from around 1999 until late 2001. Mohammed was captured on March 1, 2003, in the Pakistani city of

Rawalpindi Rawalpindi ( or ; Urdu, ) is a city in the Punjab province of Pakistan. It is the fourth largest city in Pakistan after Karachi, Lahore and Faisalabad, and third largest in Punjab after Lahore and Faisalabad. Rawalpindi is next to Pakistan ...

by a combined operation of the U.S.

Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

(CIA) and Pakistan's

Inter-Services Intelligence The Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI; ur, , bayn khadamatiy mukhabarati) is the premier intelligence agency of Pakistan. It is responsible for gathering, processing, and analyzing any information from around the world that is deemed relevant ...

(ISI). Immediately after his capture, Mohammad was extraordinarily rendered to secret CIA prison sites in Afghanistan, then Poland, where he was interrogated by U.S. operatives. By December 2006, he had been transferred to military custody at

. In March 2007, after significant interrogations, Mohammed confessed to masterminding the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commer ...

; the Richard Reid shoe bombing attempt to blow up an airliner; the Bali nightclub bombing in

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Gui ...

; the

1993 World Trade Center bombing The 1993 World Trade Center bombing was a terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York City, U.S., carried out on February 26, 1993, when a van bomb detonated below the North Tower of the complex. The urea nitrate–hydrogen gas en ...

; the murder of

Daniel Pearl Daniel Pearl (October 10, 1963 – February 1, 2002) was an American journalist who worked for ''The Wall Street Journal.'' He was kidnapped and later decapitated by terrorists in Pakistan.' Pearl was born in Princeton, New Jersey, and rais ...

; and various foiled attacks as well as numerous other crimes.Chris McGreal, "Khalid Sheikh Mohammed: former military prosecutor denounces trial"
, ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers '' The Observer'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the ...

'', May 4, 2012 He was charged in February 2008 with war crimes and murder by a U.S. military commission at Guantanamo Bay detention camp, which could carry the

death penalty Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that ...

if convicted. In 2012, a former military prosecutor criticized the proceedings as insupportable due to confessions gained under

torture Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. Some definitions are restricted to acts ...

. A 2008 decision by the

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

had also drawn into question the legality of the methods used to gain such admissions and the admissibility of such admissions as evidence in a criminal proceeding. On August 30, 2019, a military judge set a trial date of January 11, 2021, for Mohammed's death penalty trial. His trial was further postponed on December 18, 2020, due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

. Mohammed's trial restarted on September 7, 2021.

Early life and education

According to official records, Mohammed was born on April 14, 1965 or March 1, 1964, in

Balochistan, Pakistan Balochistan (; bal, بلۏچستان; ) is one of the four provinces of Pakistan. Located in the southwestern region of the country, Balochistan is the largest province of Pakistan by land area but is the least populated one. It shares land ...

Kuwait Kuwait (; ar, الكويت ', or ), officially the State of Kuwait ( ar, دولة الكويت '), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated in the northern edge of Eastern Arabia at the tip of the Persian Gulf, bordering Iraq to the nort ...

. His father was Sheikh Mohammed Ali Doustin Baluchi, a lay Deobandi preacher, who moved the family to Kuwait from Balochistan in the 1960s. His mother was Halema Mohammed. Mohammed is the uncle of

Ramzi Yousef Ramzi Ahmed Yousef ( ur, , translit=''Ramzī Ahmad Yūsuf''; born 20 May 1967 or 27 April 1968) is a Pakistani convicted terrorist who was one of the main perpetrators of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the bombing of Philippine Airlines ...

, who was convicted on terrorism charges for his part in the

, and

Ammar Al Baluchi Ammar Al-Baluchi ( ar, عمار البلوشي, ; also transliterated as Amar Al-Balochi, born Ali Abdul Aziz Ali,Shannon, Elaine. ''Time''Al-Qaeda Moneyman Caught 1 May 2003 29 August 1977) is a Pakistani citizen in U.S. custody at Guantanamo ...

, who is accused of involvement in multiple terror plots. Mohammed is fluent in Balochi,

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
''

Abdul Rasul Sayyaf Abdulrab Rasul Sayyaf ( ; ps, عبدالرسول سیاف; born 1946) is an exiled Afghan politician and former mujahideen commander. He took part in the war against the Marxist–Leninist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) govern ...

's speech in which a call for jihad against the

Soviets Soviet people ( rus, сове́тский наро́д, r=sovyétsky naród), or citizens of the USSR ( rus, гра́ждане СССР, grázhdanye SSSR), was an umbrella demonym for the population of the Soviet Union. Nationality policy in ...

was declared. At age 16, he joined the Muslim Brotherhood. After graduating from high school in 1983, Mohammad travelled to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

and enrolled in

Chowan University Chowan University ()
, from the North Carolina Collection's website at the

Murfreesboro, North Carolina Murfreesboro is a town in Hertford County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 2,835 at the 2010 census. The town is home to Chowan University. Geography Murfreesboro is located in northwestern Hertford County at (36.440983, -77.0 ...

. He later transferred to

North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (also known as North Carolina A&T State University, North Carolina A&T, N.C. A&T, or simply A&T) is a public, historically black land-grant research university in Greensboro, North Caro ...

and received a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University of ...

(BS) in

mechanical engineering Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and mathematics principles with materials science, to design, analyze, manufacture, and ...

in 1986. The following year, he went to

Peshawar Peshawar (; ps, پېښور ; hnd, ; ; ur, ) is the sixth most populous city in Pakistan, with a population of over 2.3 million. It is situated in the north-west of the country, close to the International border with Afghanistan. It is ...

, Pakistan, where he and his brothers, including

Zahed Zahed (Zahid) ( ar, زاهد) is an Arabic, Iranian, and Indian male name that means ''ascetic''. Notable people with the name include: Given name *Zahed Gilani (1216–1301) Iranian peoples, Iranian Grandmaster () of the famed Zahediyeh Sufi orde ...

, joined the

mujahideen ''Mujahideen'', or ''Mujahidin'' ( ar, مُجَاهِدِين, mujāhidīn), is the plural form of ''mujahid'' ( ar, مجاهد, mujāhid, strugglers or strivers or justice, right conduct, Godly rule, etc. doers of jihād), an Arabic term th ...

forces engaged in the

Soviet–Afghan War The Soviet–Afghan War was a protracted armed conflict fought in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989. It saw extensive fighting between the Soviet Union and the Afghan mujahideen (alongside smaller groups of anti-Soviet ...

. He attended the Sada training camp run by Sheikh

Abdallah Azzam Abdullah Yusuf Azzam ( ar, عبد الله يوسف عزام, translit=‘Abdu’llāh Yūsuf ‘Azzām; ) was a Salafi jihadist, a Palestinian scholar, and theologian of Sunni Islam. During the Soviet–Afghan War of the 1980s, he advocated " ...

, and after that he worked for the magazine ''al-Bunyan al-Marsous'', produced by Sayyaf's rebel group, the Islamic Union for the Liberation of Afghanistan. In 1992, he received a master's degree in Islamic Culture and History through correspondence classes from Punjab University in Pakistan. By 1993, Mohammad had married and moved his family to

Qatar Qatar (, ; ar, قطر, Qaṭar ; local vernacular pronunciation: ), officially the State of Qatar,) is a country in Western Asia. It occupies the Qatar Peninsula on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East; it sh ...

, where he took a position as project engineer with the Qatari Ministry of Electricity and Water. He began to travel to different countries from that time onward. The United States 9/11 Commission Report notes that, "By his own account, KSM's animus toward the United States stemmed not from his experiences there as a student, but rather from his violent disagreement with U.S. foreign policy favoring Israel." However, on August 29, 2009, ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'' reported from U.S. intelligence sources that Mohammed's time in the U.S. contributed to his radicalization.

"KSM's limited and negative experience in the United States—which included a brief jail stay because of unpaid bills—almost certainly helped propel him on his path to becoming a terrorist," according to this intelligence summary. "He stated that his contact with Americans, while minimal, confirmed his view that the United States was a debauched and racist country."

Philippines 1994–1995

Mohammed was in the

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

in late 1994 and early 1995; he then identified as a Saudi or a

i plywood exporter and used the aliases "Abdul Majid" and "Salem Ali."

Qatar, avoiding arrest

In early 1996, Mohammed returned to

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...

to avoid capture by U.S. authorities. In his flight from Qatar, he was sheltered by Sheikh Abdullah Al Thani, who was the Qatari Minister of Religious Affairs in 1996.

Alleged terrorist activities

Operation Bojinka

Mohammed traveled to the

in 1994 to work with his nephew

on the Bojinka plot, a

Manila Manila ( , ; fil, Maynila, ), officially the City of Manila ( fil, Lungsod ng Maynila, ), is the capital of the Philippines, and its second-most populous city. It is highly urbanized and, as of 2019, was the world's most densely populate ...

-based plot to destroy 12 commercial airliners flying routes between the United States,

East Asia East Asia is the eastern region of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The modern states of East Asia include China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. China, North Korea, South Korea and ...

, and

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, south-eastern region of Asia, consistin ...

. The 9/11 Commission Report says that "this marked the first time KSM took part in the actual planning of a terrorist operation." Bojinka plans included renting or buying a Cessna, packing it with explosives and crash landing it into CIA headquarters, with a backup plan to hijack the twelfth airliner in the air and use that instead. This information was reported in detail to the U.S. at the time. In December 1994, Yousef had engaged in a test of a bomb on

Philippine Airlines Flight 434 Philippine Airlines Flight 434, sometimes referred to as PAL434 or PR434, was a flight on December 11, 1994 from Cebu to Tokyo on a Boeing 747-283B that was seriously damaged by a bomb, killing one passenger and damaging vital control systems. ...

using only about ten percent of the explosives that were to be used in each of the bombs to be planted on U.S. airliners. The test resulted in the death of a Japanese national on board a flight from the Philippines to Japan. Mohammed conspired with Yousef in the plot until it was uncovered on January 6, 1995. Yousef was captured February 7 of that same year. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was indicted on terrorism charges in the

United States District Court for the Southern District of New York The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (in case citations, S.D.N.Y.) is a federal trial court whose geographic jurisdiction encompasses eight counties of New York State. Two of these are in New York City: New ...

in January 1996 for his alleged involvement in Operation Bojinka, and was subsequently placed on the October 10, 2001, initial list of the FBI's 22 Most Wanted Terrorists.

Relationship with Osama bin Laden

By the time the

Bojinka plot The Bojinka plot ( ar, بوجينكا; tl, Oplan Bojinka) was a large-scale, three-phase terrorist attack planned by Ramzi Yousef and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed for January 1995. They planned to assassinate Pope John Paul II; blow up 11 airliners ...

was discovered, Mohammed had returned to Qatar and his job as a project engineer at the country's Ministry of Electricity and Water. He traveled in 1995 to

Sudan Sudan ( or ; ar, السودان, as-Sūdān, officially the Republic of the Sudan ( ar, جمهورية السودان, link=no, Jumhūriyyat as-Sūdān), is a country in Northeast Africa. It shares borders with the Central African Republic t ...

Yemen Yemen (; ar, ٱلْيَمَن, al-Yaman), officially the Republic of Yemen,, ) is a country in Western Asia. It is situated on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, and borders Saudi Arabia to the Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, north and ...

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...

, and

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

to visit elements of the worldwide

jihadist Jihadism is a neologism which is used in reference to "militant Islamic movements that are perceived as existentially threatening to the West" and "rooted in political Islam."Compare: Appearing earlier in the Pakistani and Indian media, Wes ...

community, although no evidence connects him to specific terrorist actions in any of those locations. On his trip to Sudan, he attempted to meet with

Osama bin Laden Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden (10 March 1957 – 2 May 2011) was a Saudi-born extremist militant who founded al-Qaeda and served as its leader from 1988 until Killing of Osama bin Laden, his death in 2011. Ideologically a Pan-Islamism ...

, who was at the time living there, aided by Sudanese political leader Hassan al-Turabi. After the U.S. asked the Qatari government to arrest Mohammed in January 1996, he fled to

, where he renewed his alliance with Abdul Rasul Sayyaf. Later that year, he formed a working relationship with Bin Laden, who had settled there. Bin Laden and his colleagues relocated their operations to Afghanistan at this time.

Mohammed Atef Mohammed Atef ( ar, محمد عاطف, ; born Sobhi Mohammed Abu Sitta Al-Gohary, also known as Abu Hafs al-Masri) was the military chief of al-Qaeda, and was considered one of Osama bin Laden's two deputies, the other being Ayman Al Zawahiri, ...

, bin Laden's chief of operations and also known at the time as Abu Hafs al-Masri, arranged a meeting between bin Laden and Mohammed in

Tora Bora Tora Bora ( ps, توره بوړه, "Black Cave") is a cave complex, part of the Spin Ghar (White Mountains) mountain range of eastern Afghanistan. It is situated in the Pachir Aw Agam District of Nangarhar, approximately west of the Khyber ...

sometime in mid-1996, in which Mohammed outlined a plan that would eventually become the quadruple hijackings in 2001. Bin Laden urged Mohammed to become a full-fledged member of Al Qaeda, but he continued to refuse such a commitment until around early 1999, after the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in

Nairobi Nairobi ( ) is the capital and largest city of Kenya. The name is derived from the Maasai phrase ''Enkare Nairobi'', which translates to "place of cool waters", a reference to the Nairobi River which flows through the city. The city proper ha ...

and

Dar es Salaam Dar es Salaam (; from ar, دَار السَّلَام, Dâr es-Selâm, lit=Abode of Peace) or commonly known as Dar, is the largest city and financial hub of Tanzania. It is also the capital of Dar es Salaam Region. With a population of over s ...

. In 1997, Mohammed moved his family from

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

Karachi Karachi (; ur, ; ; ) is the most populous city in Pakistan and 12th most populous city in the world, with a population of over 20 million. It is situated at the southern tip of the country along the Arabian Sea coast. It is the former cap ...

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...

. That year, he tried unsuccessfully to join mujahideen leader Ibn al-Khattab in

Chechnya Chechnya ( rus, Чечня́, Chechnyá, p=tɕɪtɕˈnʲa; ce, Нохчийчоь, Noxçiyçö), officially the Chechen Republic,; ce, Нохчийн Республика, Noxçiyn Respublika is a republic of Russia. It is situated in the ...

, another area of special interest to Mohammed. Unable to travel to Chechnya, he returned to Afghanistan. He ultimately accepted bin Laden's invitation to move to

Kandahar Kandahar (; Kandahār, , Qandahār) is a List of cities in Afghanistan, city in Afghanistan, located in the south of the country on the Arghandab River, at an elevation of . It is Afghanistan's second largest city after Kabul, with a population ...

and join al-Qaeda as a full-fledged member. Eventually, he became leader of Al Qaeda's

media Media may refer to: Communication * Media (communication), tools used to deliver information or data ** Advertising media, various media, content, buying and placement for advertising ** Broadcast media, communications delivered over mass e ...

committee.

Plan for September 11, 2001 attacks

The first hijack plan that Mohammed presented to the leadership of

called for several airplanes on both east and west coasts to be hijacked and flown into targets. His plan evolved from an earlier foiled plot known as the Bojinka plot (see above). Bin Laden rejected some potential targets suggested by Mohammed, such as the

U.S. Bank Tower U.S. Bank Tower, known locally as the Library Tower and formerly as the First Interstate Bank World Center, is a skyscraper in downtown Los Angeles, California. It is, by structural height, the third-tallest building in California, the seco ...

in Los Angeles, as he wished to simplify the attacks. In late 1998 or early 1999, bin Laden gave approval for Mohammed to proceed to organize the plot. Meetings in early 1999 took place with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed,

, and his military chief,

. Bin Laden led the plot and provided financial support. He was also involved in selecting the participants, including choosing

Mohamed Atta Mohamed Mohamed el-Amir Awad el-Sayed Atta ( ; ar, محمد محمد الأمير عوض السيد عطا ; September 1, 1968 – September 11, 2001) was an Egyptian hijacker and the ringleader of the September 11 attacks in 2001 in which f ...

as the lead hijacker. Khalid Sheikh provided operational support, such as selecting targets and helping arrange travel for the hijackers. Atef directed the actions of the hijackers. After Atta was chosen as the leader of the mission, "he met with Bin Laden to discuss the targets: the

World Trade Center World Trade Centers are sites recognized by the World Trade Centers Association. World Trade Center may refer to: Buildings * List of World Trade Centers * World Trade Center (2001–present), a building complex that includes five skyscrapers, a ...

, which represented the U.S. economy;

the Pentagon The Pentagon is the headquarters building of the United States Department of Defense. It was constructed on an accelerated schedule during World War II. As a symbol of the U.S. military, the phrase ''The Pentagon'' is often used as a metony ...

, a symbol of the U.S. military; and the

U.S. Capitol The United States Capitol, often called The Capitol or the Capitol Building, is the seat of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, which is formally known as the United States Congress. It is located on Capitol Hill at ...

, the perceived source of U.S. policy in support of Israel. The

White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800. ...

was also on the list, as Bin Laden considered it a political symbol and wanted to attack it as well." If any pilot could not reach his intended target, he was to crash the plane. According to testimony by Philip Zelikow, bin Laden was motivated by a desire to punish the US for supporting Israel and wanted to move up the attack date. Mohammed argued for ensuring the teams were prepared.

in Laden IN, In or in may refer to: Places * India (country code IN) * Indiana, United States (postal code IN) * Ingolstadt, Germany (license plate code IN) * In, Russia, a town in the Jewish Autonomous Oblast Businesses and organizations * Independ ...
allegedly told KSM it would be sufficient simply to down the planes and not hit specific targets. KSM stood his ground, arguing that the operation would not be successful unless the pilots were fully trained and the hijacking teams were larger.

In a 2002 interview with

Al Jazeera Al Jazeera ( ar, الجزيرة, translit-std=DIN, translit=al-jazīrah, , "The Island") is a state-owned Arabic-language international radio and TV broadcaster of Qatar. It is based in Doha and operated by the media conglomerate Al Jazeera ...

journalist Yosri Fouda, Mohammed admitted that he and

Ramzi bin al-Shibh Ramzi Mohammed Abdullah bin al-Shibh ( ar, رمزي محمد عبدالله بن الشيبة; also transliterated as bin al-Shaibah; born 1 May 1972

Daniel Pearl murder

According to a

CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...

interview with intelligence expert

Rohan Gunaratna Rohan Gunaratna (born 1961) is a Sri Lankan born political analyst specializing in international terrorism. He is the Director General of thInstitute of National Security Studies Professor Gunaratna has over 30 years of academic, policy, and op ...

, "

was going in search of the al Qaeda network that was operational in Karachi, and it was at the instruction of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed that Daniel Pearl was killed."Ressa, Maria. ''CNN.com'', December 6, 2003. On October 12, 2006, ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...

'' magazine reported that "KSM confessed under CIA interrogation that he personally committed the murder." On March 15, 2007,

stated that Mohammed had confessed to the murder. The statement quoted Mohammed as saying, "I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American

Jew Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""Th ...

, Daniel Pearl, in the city of

. For those who would like to confirm, there are pictures of me on the Internet holding his head." This confession was gained under torture, and Mohammed listed many other crimes at the same time. According to an investigative report published in January 2011 by

Georgetown University Georgetown University is a private university, private research university in the Georgetown (Washington, D.C.), Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded by Bishop John Carroll (archbishop of Baltimore), John Carroll in 1789 as Georg ...

, the

Federal Bureau of Investigation The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, ...

used

vein matching Vein matching, also called vascular technology, is a technique of biometric identification through the analysis of the patterns of blood vessels visible from the surface of the skin. Though used by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Cen ...

to determine that the perpetrator in the video of the killing of Pearl was most likely Mohammed, notably through identifying a "bulging vein" running across his hand. Concerned that the confession obtained through

waterboarding Waterboarding is a form of torture in which water is poured over a cloth covering the face and breathing passages of an immobilized captive, causing the person to experience the sensation of drowning. In the most common method of waterboard ...

did not hold up in court; federal officials used this forensic evidence to bolster their case.

Capture, interrogation, and torture

On September 11, 2002, members of Pakistani

(ISI) claimed to have killed or captured Sheikh Mohammed during a raid in

that resulted in bin al-Shibh's capture. This Pakistani claim was false. Mohammed was captured in

(about 20 km southwest of Islamabad), on March 1, 2003, by the Pakistani ISI, possibly in a joint action with the CIA's

Special Activities Division The Special Activities Center (SAC) is a division of the United States Central Intelligence Agency responsible for covert and paramilitary operations. The unit was named Special Activities Division (SAD) prior to 2015. Within SAC there are two ...

paramilitary operatives and officers of the American

Diplomatic Security Service The Diplomatic Security Service (DSS or DS) is a security and law enforcement agency that acts as the operational division of the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, which is a branch of the United States Department of State. Its primary mission is ...

. He has been in U.S. custody since that time. Initially, Mohammed was held in the CIA's

Salt Pit The Salt Pit and Cobalt are the code names of an isolated clandestine CIA black site prison and interrogation center outside Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. It is located north of Kabul and was the location of a brick factory prior to the Afgh ...

(''Cobalt'') prison in

. After just a "few minutes" of questioning at ''Cobalt'', he was subject to "

enhanced interrogation techniques "Enhanced interrogation techniques" or "enhanced interrogation" is a euphemism for the program of systematic torture of detainees by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and various components of the U.S. A ...

". He was slapped, grabbed in the face, placed in

stress positions A stress position, also known as a submission position, places the human body in such a way that a great amount of weight is placed on just one or two muscles. For example, a subject may be forced to stand on the balls of their feet, then squat ...

, placed in standing sleep deprivation, doused with water, and subjected to rectal rehydration multiple times, without a determination of medical need. During 2003, Mohammad was held at a secret CIA prison, or

black site In military terminology, a black site is a location at which an unacknowledged black operation or black project is conducted. According to the Associated Press, "Black sites are clandestine jails where prisoners generally are not charged with ...

, in

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

, where the CIA waterboarded him 183 times. He was then transferred to another secret CIA prison in

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...

In September 2006, the U.S. government announced it had moved Mohammed from a secret CIA prison (or

) to the military custody at the

. The

Red Cross The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is a Humanitarianism, humanitarian movement with approximately 97 million Volunteering, volunteers, members and staff worldwide. It was founded to protect human life and health, to ensure re ...

Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human r ...

and Mohammed consider that the harsh interrogation techniques, including

, which he received from U.S. agents amount to

. Mohammad was also subject to sleep deprivation for a period of days, during much of which he was forced to stand. According to later reports, Mohammed initially told American interrogators he would not answer any questions until he was provided with a lawyer, which was refused. He claims to have been kept naked for more than a month during his isolation and interrogations, and said he was "questioned by an unusual number of female handlers". A CIA document reveals that

Jane Harman Jane Margaret Lakes Harman (born June 28, 1945) is the former U.S. Representative for , serving from 1993 to 1999, and from 2001 to 2011; she is a member of the Democratic Party. Harman was the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committ ...

(D-CA) and

Porter Goss Porter Johnston Goss (; born November 26, 1938) is an American politician and government official who served as a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1989 until 2004, when he became the last Director of Central Intellig ...

(R-FL) of the

House Intelligence Committee The United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), also known as the House Intelligence Committee, is a committee of the United States House of Representatives, currently chaired by Adam Schiff. It is the primary committ ...

were briefed on July 13, 2004, by the CIA

Deputy Director for Operations The deputy director of the CIA for operations is a senior United States government official in the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency who serves as head of the Directorate of Operations. The position was established December 1, 1950 and from Janua ...

James Pavitt James L. Pavitt (born February 19, 1946 - died December 22, 2022) was Deputy Director for Operations (DDO) for the CIA from 23 June 1999 until July 12, 2004, when he resigned a day after George Tenet. The CIA said the resignations was for personal ...

, General Counsel Scott Muller, and CIA Inspector General John L. Helgerson on the status of the interrogation process of Mohammed. By this date, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed had been subjected to 183 applications of waterboarding. The document states: A U.S. official has clarified that the "183" number represents the number of times water was poured onto Mohammed's face—not the number of times the CIA waterboarded him. According to a 2007 Red Cross report, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was subjected a total of "five sessions of ill-treatment." "The water was poured 183 times – there were 183 pours," the official explained, adding that "each pour was a matter of seconds." On October 12, 2004,

reported that 11 suspects, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, had "

disappeared An enforced disappearance (or forced disappearance) is the secret abduction or imprisonment of a person by a state or political organization, or by a third party with the authorization, support, or acquiescence of a state or political organi ...

" to a semi-secret prison in

Jordan Jordan ( ar, الأردن; tr. ' ), officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,; tr. ' is a country in Western Asia. It is situated at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe, within the Levant region, on the East Bank of the Jordan Rive ...

, and may have been tortured there under the direction of the CIA. At the time, Jordanian and American officials denied those allegations. On February 5, 2008, the CIA Director Michael Hayden told a Senate committee that his agents had used

on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. A 2005 U.S. Justice Department memo released in April 2009 stated that Mohammed had undergone waterboarding 183 times in March 2003. In October 2006, Mohammed described his mistreatment and torture in detention, including the waterboarding, to a representative of the

International Committee of the Red Cross The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC; french: Comité international de la Croix-Rouge) is a humanitarian organization which is based in Geneva, Switzerland, and it is also a three-time Nobel Prize Laureate. State parties (signato ...

. Mohammed said that he had provided a lot of false information, which he had supposed the interrogators wanted to hear, in order to stop the mistreatment. In the 2006 interview with the Red Cross, Mohammed claimed to have been waterboarded in five different sessions during the first month of interrogation in his third place of detention. While the Justice Department memos did not explain exactly what the numbers represented, a U.S. official with knowledge of the interrogation programs explained the 183 figure represented the number of times water was applied to the detainee's face during the waterboarding sessions, rather than separate sessions. In March 2007, after four years in captivity, including six months of detention and alleged torture at Guantanamo Bay, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed—as it was claimed by a

Combatant Status Review Tribunal The Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRT) were a set of tribunals for confirming whether detainees held by the United States at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp had been correctly designated as "enemy combatants". The CSRTs were esta ...

Hearing in Guantanamo Bay—confessed to masterminding the

, the

Richard Reid Richard Colvin Reid (born 12 August 1973), also known as the "Shoe Bomber", is the perpetrator of the failed shoe bombing attempt on a transatlantic flight in 2001. Born to a father who was a career criminal, Reid converted to Islam as a young ...

shoe bombing attempt to blow up an airliner over the Atlantic Ocean, the

Bali nightclub bombing The 2002 Bali bombings occurred on 12 October 2002 in the tourist district of Kuta on the Indonesian island of Bali. The attack killed 202 people (including 88 Australians, 38 Indonesians, 23 Britons, and people of more than 20 other national ...

, the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and various foiled attacks. "I was responsible for the 9/11 operation from A to Z," Khalid Sheikh Mohammed said in a statement read Saturday during a Combatant Status Review Tribunal at the

. According to the "unclassified summary of evidence" presented during the CSRT hearing, a computer hard drive seized during the capture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed contained the following: * information about the four airplanes hijacked on September 11, 2001, including code names, airline company, flight number, target, pilot name and background information, and names of the hijackers; * photographs of 19 individuals identified as September 11, 2001, hijackers; * a document that listed the pilot license fees for Mohammad Atta and biographies for some of September 11, 2001, hijackers; * images of passports and an image of Mohammad Atta; * transcripts of chat sessions belonging to at least one of September 11, 2001, hijackers; * three letters from Osama bin Laden; * spreadsheets that describe financial assistance to families of known al Qaeda members * a letter to the United Arab Emirates threatening attack if their government continued to help the United States; * a document that summarized operational procedures and training requirements of an al Qaeda cell; and * a list of killed and wounded al Qaeda militants. At the hearing, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed said the computer belonged not to him, but to Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi, arrested together with him. In June 2008, a ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' article, citing unnamed CIA officers, claimed that Mohammed had been held in a

or secret facility in

near Szymany Airport, about 100 miles north of

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...

. There he was interrogated under waterboarding before he began to "cooperate." In 2009, Mohammed described his actions and motivations in a document publicly released and known as ''The Islamic Response to the Government's Nine Accusations.'' In April 2011, the British newspaper, ''

The Telegraph ''The Telegraph'', ''Daily Telegraph'', ''Sunday Telegraph'' and other variant names are popular names for newspapers. Newspapers with these titles include: Australia * ''The Telegraph'' (Adelaide), a newspaper in Adelaide, South Australia, publ ...

'' said it received leaked documents regarding the Guantanamo Bay interrogations of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The documents cited Mohammed as saying that, if

is captured or killed by the

Coalition of the Willing The term ''coalition of the willing'' refers to an international alliance focused on achieving a particular objective, usually of military or political nature. Usage *One early use was by President Bill Clinton in June 1994 in relation to possib ...

, an al-Qaeda

sleeper cell A clandestine cell system is a method for organizing a group of people (such as resistance fighters, sleeper agents, mobsters, or terrorists) such that such people can more effectively resist penetration by an opposing organization (such as ...

would detonate a "weapon of mass destruction" in a "secret location" in Europe, and promised it would be "a nuclear hellstorm".

Report that interrogators abused his children

Ali Khan, the father of Majid Khan, another one of the 14 "high-value detainees," released an affidavit on April 16, 2006, that reported that interrogators subjected Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's children, aged 6 and 8 years old, to abusive interrogation. Khan's affidavit quoted another of his sons, Mohammed Khan:

Transfer to Guantánamo and hearing before his Combatant Status Review Tribunal

On September 6, 2006, then-

American President The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States ...

George W. Bush George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...

confirmed, for the first time, that the

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

had held "high-value detainees" for interrogation in secret prisons around the world. He also announced that fourteen senior captives, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, were being transferred from CIA custody, to military custody, at

and that these fourteen captives could now expect to face charges before Guantanamo military commissions. In a September 29, 2006, speech, Bush stated: In March 2007, Mohammed testified before a closed-door hearing in Guantánamo Bay. According to transcripts of the hearing released by the Pentagon, he said, "I was responsible for the 9/11 operation, from A to Z." The transcripts also show him confessing to: * Organizing the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, * The Bali nightclub bombings, * Richard Reid's attempted shoe bombing, * Planning the attacks on

Heathrow Airport Heathrow Airport (), called ''London Airport'' until 1966 and now known as London Heathrow , is a major international airport in London, England. It is the largest of the six international airports in the London airport system (the others be ...

and Big Ben clock tower in London, * Daniel Pearl's murder in 2002, * Planned

assassination Assassination is the murder of a prominent or important person, such as a head of state, head of government, politician, world leader, member of a royal family or CEO. The murder of a celebrity, activist, or artist, though they may not have ...

attempts on

Pope John Paul II Pope John Paul II ( la, Ioannes Paulus II; it, Giovanni Paolo II; pl, Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła ; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his ...

Pervez Musharraf General Pervez Musharraf ( ur, , Parvez Muśharraf; born 11 August 1943) is a former Pakistani politician and four-star general of the Pakistan Army who became the tenth president of Pakistan after the successful military takeover of t ...

and

Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton ( né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and agai ...

. On March 15, 2007,

BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broadca ...

reported that "Transcripts of his testimony were translated from Arabic and edited by the U.S. Department of Defense to remove sensitive intelligence material before release. It appeared, from a judge's question, that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed had made allegations of torture in US custody." In the Defense Department transcript, Mohammed said his statement was not made under

duress Coercion () is compelling a party to act in an involuntary manner by the use of threats, including threats to use force against a party. It involves a set of forceful actions which violate the free will of an individual in order to induce a desi ...

but Mohammed and human rights advocates have alleged that he was tortured. CIA officials have previously told

ABC News ABC News is the news division of the American broadcast network ABC. Its flagship program is the daily evening newscast ''ABC World News Tonight, ABC World News Tonight with David Muir''; other programs include Breakfast television, morning ...

that "Mohammed lasted the longest under waterboarding, two and a half minutes, before beginning to talk."CIA's Harsh Interrogation Techniques Described: Sources Say Agency's Tactics Lead to Questionable Confessions, Sometimes to Death
, ABC News, November 18, 2005 Legal experts say this could taint all his statements. Forensic psychiatrist Michael Welner, M.D., an expert in false confessions, observed from the testimony transcript that his concerns about his family may have been far more influential in soliciting Mohammed's cooperation than any earlier reported mistreatment. One CIA official cautioned that "many of Mohammed's claims during interrogation were 'white noise' designed to send the U.S. on wild goose chases or to get him through the day's interrogation session." For example, according to Mike Rogers, a former FBI agent and the top

Republican Republican can refer to: Political ideology * An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law. ** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...

on the terrorism panel of the

, he admitted responsibility for the Bali nightclub bombing, but his involvement "could have been as small as arranging a safe house for travel. It could have been arranging finance." Mohammed also made the admission that he was "responsible for the 1993 World Trade Center Operation," which killed six and injured more than 1,000 when a bomb was detonated in an underground garage, Mohammed did not plan the attack, but he may have supported it. Michael Welner noted that by offering legitimate information to interrogators, Mohammed had secured the leverage to provide misinformation as well. In an article discussing the reliability of Khalid's confession and the motive for giving misinformation under torture,

Ali Soufan Ali H. Soufan (born 1971) is a Lebanese-American former FBI agent who was involved in a number of high-profile anti-terrorism cases both in the United States and around the world. A 2006 ''New Yorker'' article described Soufan as coming close ...

, a former FBI special agent with considerable experience interrogating al-Qaeda operatives, pointed out that: His words are echoed by the U.S. Army Training Manual's section on interrogation, which suggests that: As an example of this the article discloses that although the

George W. Bush administration George W. Bush's tenure as the 43rd president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 2001, and ended on January 20, 2009. Bush, a Republican from Texas, took office following a narrow victory over Democratic ...

made claims that the water-boarding (simulated drowning) of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed produced vital information that allowed them to break up a plot to attack the

(formerly Library Tower and First Interstate Bank World Center) in Los Angeles in 2002, this has been proven to be untrue. In 2002 Sheikh Mohammed was busy evading capture in Pakistan. Likewise the claim by former George W Bush Attorney General

Michael Mukasey Michael Bernard Mukasey (; born July 28, 1941) is an American attorney and former federal judge who served as the 81st Attorney General of the United States from 2007 to 2009. Born in New York City in 1941, Mukasey attended Ramaz School, gradua ...

and former CIA

director of the National Clandestine Service The deputy director of the CIA for operations is a senior United States government official in the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency who serves as head of the Directorate of Operations. The position was established December 1, 1950 and from Janu ...

, Jose Rodriguez, that the torture of Khalid Mohammed produced the most significant lead in finding

, has also been shown to be false. According to U.S. Senator

John McCain John Sidney McCain III (August 29, 1936 – August 25, 2018) was an American politician and United States Navy officer who served as a United States senator from Arizona from 1987 until his death in 2018. He previously served two terms ...

, "The trail to bin Laden did not begin with a disclosure from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was waterboarded 183 times ... not only did the use of 'enhanced interrogation techniques' on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed not provide us with key leads on bin Laden's courier, Abu Ahmed; it actually produced false and misleading information."

List of confessions

Mohammed has made at least 31 confessions: * The February 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York City * The

on the

, and the

United States Capitol The United States Capitol, often called The Capitol or the Capitol Building, is the seat of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, which is formally known as the United States Congress. It is located on Capitol Hill ...

using four hijacked commercial airliners. * A failed "shoe bomber" operation * The October 2002 attack in

*The beheading of ''

Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'' reporter

* The 2002 Bali bombings, Pady's and Sari's club bombings in Bali, Indonesia * A plan for a "second wave" of attacks on major U.S. landmarks after the 9/11 attacks, including the Library Tower in Los Angeles, the

Willis Tower The Willis Tower (originally the Sears Tower) is a 108-story, skyscraper in the Loop community area of Chicago in Illinois, United States. Designed by architect Bruce Graham and engineer Fazlur Rahman Khan of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), ...

(formerly Sears Tower) in Chicago, the

Empire State Building The Empire State Building is a 102-story Art Deco skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The building was designed by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon and built from 1930 to 1931. Its name is derived from "Empire State", the nickname of the st ...

in New York City, and what has been reported as the Plaza Bank Building in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

, although there is no Plaza Bank Building; there is a

Safeco Plaza Safeco Plaza (formerly known as 1001 Fourth Avenue Plaza, the Seafirst Building, and the Seattle-First National Bank Building) is a 50-story skyscraper in Downtown Seattle, Washington, United States. Designed by the Naramore, Bain, Brady, and ...

and

Columbia Center The Columbia Center, formerly named the Bank of America Tower and Columbia Seafirst Center, is a skyscraper in downtown Seattle, Washington, United States. The 76-story structure is the tallest building in Seattle and the state of Washington, r ...

, the city's tallest skyscraper * Plots to attack oil tankers and U.S. naval ships in the

Straits of Hormuz The Strait of Hormuz ( fa, تنگه هرمز ''Tangeh-ye Hormoz'' ar, مَضيق هُرمُز ''Maḍīq Hurmuz'') is a strait between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. It provides the only sea passage from the Persian Gulf to the o ...

, the Straits of Gibraltar and in

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

* A plan to blow up the

Panama Canal The Panama Canal ( es, Canal de Panamá, link=no) is an artificial waterway in Panama that connects the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific Ocean and divides North and South America. The canal cuts across the Isthmus of Panama and is a conduit ...

* Plans to assassinate

Jimmy Carter James Earl Carter Jr. (born October 1, 1924) is an American politician who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, he previously served as th ...

* A plot to blow up suspension bridges in New York City * A plan to destroy the

Sears Tower The Willis Tower (originally the Sears Tower) is a 108- story, skyscraper in the Loop community area of Chicago in Illinois, United States. Designed by architect Bruce Graham and engineer Fazlur Rahman Khan of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM ...

in Chicago with burning fuel trucks * Plans to destroy

London Heathrow Airport Heathrow Airport (), called ''London Airport'' until 1966 and now known as London Heathrow , is a major international airport in London, England. It is the largest of the six international airports in the Airports of London, London airport sys ...

Canary Wharf Canary Wharf is an area of London, England, located near the Isle of Dogs in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. Canary Wharf is defined by the Greater London Authority as being part of London's central business district, alongside Central Lon ...

and

Big Ben Big Ben is the nickname for the Great Bell of the Great Clock of Westminster, at the north end of the Palace of Westminster in London, England, and the name is frequently extended to refer also to the clock and the clock tower. The officia ...

in London * A planned attack on many nightclubs in

Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is bo ...

* A plot targeting the

New York Stock Exchange The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed c ...

and other U.S. financial targets * A plan to destroy buildings in Eilat,

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

* Plans to destroy U.S. embassies in Indonesia, Australia and Japan in 2002 * Plots to destroy

i embassies in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

Azerbaijan Azerbaijan (, ; az, Azərbaycan ), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, , also sometimes officially called the Azerbaijan Republic is a transcontinental country located at the boundary of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is a part of th ...

, the

and

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

* Surveying and financing an attack on an

El-Al El Al Israel Airlines Ltd. (, he, אל על נתיבי אויר לישראל בע״מ), trading as El Al (Hebrew: , "Upwards", "To the Skies" or "Skywards", stylized as ELAL; ar, إل-عال), is the flag carrier of Israel. Since its inaugural ...

flight from

Bangkok Bangkok, officially known in Thai language, Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon and colloquially as Krung Thep, is the capital and most populous city of Thailand. The city occupies in the Chao Phraya River delta in central Thailand and has an estima ...

* Sending several "mujahideen" into Israel to survey "strategic targets" with the intention of attacking them * The November 2002 suicide bombing of a hotel in

Mombasa Mombasa ( ; ) is a coastal city in southeastern Kenya along the Indian Ocean. It was the first capital of the British East Africa, before Nairobi was elevated to capital city status. It now serves as the capital of Mombasa County. The town is ...

, Kenya, and failed attempt to shoot down an

i passenger jet leaving

Mombasa Airport Moi International Airport is an international airport in Mombasa, the second-largest city in Kenya. In 2020 the airport was heralded as the "Best Airport in Africa" (with under 2 million passengers annually) by Airports Council International ...

* Plans to attack U.S. targets in South Korea * Providing financial support for a plan to attack U.S., British and

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

targets in

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

* Surveillance of U.S. nuclear power plants in order to attack them * A plot to attack

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...

's headquarters in Europe * Planning and surveillance in a 1995 plan (the "Bojinka plot") to bomb 12 American passenger jets * The planned assassination attempt against then-U.S. President

during a mid-1990s trip to the

* "Shared responsibility" for a plot to kill

Pope The pope ( la, papa, from el, πάππας, translit=pappas, 'father'), also known as supreme pontiff ( or ), Roman pontiff () or sovereign pontiff, is the bishop of Rome (or historically the patriarch of Rome), head of the worldwide Cathol ...

John Paul II Pope John Paul II ( la, Ioannes Paulus II; it, Giovanni Paolo II; pl, Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła ; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his ...

* Plans to assassinate Pakistani President

* An attempt to attack a U.S. oil company in

Sumatra Sumatra is one of the Sunda Islands of western Indonesia. It is the largest island that is fully within Indonesian territory, as well as the sixth-largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 (182,812 mi.2), not including adjacent i ...

, Indonesia, "owned by the Jewish former .S. Secretary of State

Henry Kissinger Henry Alfred Kissinger (; ; born Heinz Alfred Kissinger, May 27, 1923) is a German-born American politician, diplomat, and geopolitical consultant who served as United States Secretary of State and National Security Advisor under the presid ...

" After Mohammed arrived at Guantánamo, a team of FBI and military interrogators tried to elicit from him the same confessions that the CIA had obtained about the 9/11 plot, but by using only legal means of interrogation. By 2008, the Bush Administration believed that this so-called "Clean Team" had compiled sufficient evidence to charge Mohammed and the others with capital murder. The

Department of Defense Department of Defence or Department of Defense may refer to: Current departments of defence * Department of Defence (Australia) * Department of National Defence (Canada) * Department of Defence (Ireland) * Department of National Defense (Philipp ...

announced on August 9, 2007, that all fourteen of the "high-value detainees" who had been transferred to Guantanamo from the CIA's

s, had been officially classified as "enemy combatants".
mirror
Although judges Peter Brownback and Keith J. Allred had ruled two months earlier that only "''illegal'' enemy combatants" could face military commissions, the Department of Defense waived the qualifier and said that all fourteen men could now face charges before

Guantanamo military commission ThGuantanamo military commissionswere established by President George W. Bush – through a Military Order – on November 13, 2001, to try certain non-citizen terrorism suspects at the Guantanamo Bay prison. To date, there have been a total of e ...

Confession used in Sheikh Omar's defense

On March 19, 2007,

Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh ( ur, احمد عمر سعید شیخ; sometimes known as Umar Sheikh, Sheikh Omar,Note that this term is more commonly used in reference to Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman Sheik Syed or by the alias Mustafa Muhammad Ahmad;''CNN ...

's lawyers cited Mohammed's confession in defense of their client. Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, also known as Sheikh Omar, was

sentenced to death Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...

in a Pakistani court for the murder of Daniel Pearl. Omar's lawyers recently announced that they planned to use Mohammed's confession in an appeal. They had always acknowledged that Omar played a role in Pearl's murder, but argue that Mohammed was the actual murderer.

Prosecution in France

In 2009, the French government decided to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed ''

in absentia is Latin for absence. , a legal term, is Latin for "in the absence" or "while absent". may also refer to: * Award in absentia * Declared death in absentia, or simply, death in absentia, legally declared death without a body * Election in absen ...

'' on terrorism charges with respect to the Ghriba synagogue bombing on the

Tunis ''Tounsi'' french: Tunisois , population_note = , population_urban = , population_metro = 2658816 , population_density_km2 = , timezone1 = CET , utc_offset1 ...

ian island of

Djerba Djerba (; ar, جربة, Jirba, ; it, Meninge, Girba), also transliterated as Jerba or Jarbah, is a Tunisian island and the largest island of North Africa at , in the Gulf of Gabès, off the coast of Tunisia. It had a population of 139,544 ...

in 2002, which killed 14 German tourists, five Tunisians and two French nationals. They intended to charge him along with the captured German national Christian Ganczarski and Tunisian Walid Nawar. French judges later decided to separate Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's case from those of Ganczarski and Nawar and try him separately at a later date.

Trial for role in September 11 attacks

On February 11, 2008, the

United States Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD or DOD) is an executive branch department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government directly related to national secu ...

charged Mohammed,

Ramzi bin al-Shibh Ramzi Mohammed Abdullah bin al-Shibh ( ar, رمزي محمد عبدالله بن الشيبة; also transliterated as bin al-Shaibah; born 1 May 1972Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi, Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali and

Walid Bin Attash Walid Muhammad Salih bin Mubarak bin Attash ( ar, وليد محمد صالح بن مبارك بن عتش; born 1978) is a Yemeni prisoner held in extrajudicial detention at the United States' Guantanamo Bay detention camp and is suspected of pla ...

for the

September 11, 2001 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial ...

under the military commission system, as established under the

Military Commissions Act of 2006 The Military Commissions Act of 2006, also known as HR-6166, was an Act of Congress signed by President George W. Bush on October 17, 2006. The Act's stated purpose was "to authorize trial by military commission for violations of the law of ...

. They have reportedly been charged with the murder of almost 3000 people, terrorism and

providing material support for terrorism In United States law, providing material support for terrorism is a crime prohibited by the USA PATRIOT Act and codified in title 18 of the United States Code, section2339Aan2339B It applies primarily to groups designated as terrorists by the St ...

and plane hijacking; as well as attacking civilian objects, intentionally causing serious bodily injury and destruction of property in violation of the law of war. The charges against them list 169 overt acts allegedly committed by the defendants in furtherance of the September 11 events. The charges include 2,973 individual counts of murder—one for each person killed in the 9/11 attacks. The prosecution is seeking the

, which would require the unanimous agreement of the commission judges.

Human rights Human rights are Morality, moral principles or Social norm, normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for ce ...

groups, including

Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...

and the

Center for Constitutional Rights The Center for Constitutional RightsThe Center for Constitutional Rights
(CCR) is a federal district court The United States district courts are the trial courts of the U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each federal judicial district, which each cover one U.S. state or, in some cases, a portion of a state. Each district cou ...

, with defendants treated as criminal suspects, or by

court-martial A court-martial or court martial (plural ''courts-martial'' or ''courts martial'', as "martial" is a postpositive adjective) is a military court or a trial conducted in such a court. A court-martial is empowered to determine the guilt of memb ...

as a prisoner under the

Geneva Conventions upright=1.15, Original document in single pages, 1864 The Geneva Conventions are four treaties, and three additional protocols, that establish international legal standards for humanitarian treatment in war. The singular term ''Geneva Conven ...

, which prohibit civilian trials for prisoners of war. Mohammed could face the death penalty under any of these systems. The case is progressing through the legal system. In August 2019 the trial date was tentatively set for January 11, 2021 by Judge W. Shane Cohen, but this date was postponed on December 18, 2020, due to the

. Mohammed's trial restarted on September 7, 2021.

Legal rulings affecting him

In ''

Boumediene v. Bush ''Boumediene v. Bush'', 553 U.S. 723 (2008), was a writ of ''habeas corpus'' submission made in a civilian court of the United States on behalf of Lakhdar Boumediene, a naturalized citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina, held in military detention by ...

'' (2008), the

ruled that detainees had the right of access to US federal courts to petition under

habeas corpus ''Habeas corpus'' (; from Medieval Latin, ) is a recourse in law through which a person can report an unlawful detention or imprisonment to a court and request that the court order the custodian of the person, usually a prison official, t ...

to challenge their detentions, and that the

Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 The Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 (DTA) is an Act of the United States Congress that was signed into law by President George W. Bush on 30 December 2005. Offered as an amendment to a supplemental defense spending bill, it contains provisions re ...

and the

were flawed. A revised Military Commissions Act was passed by Congress in 2009 to address court concerns. Mohammed, in a letter submitted to the court on July 26, 2019, communicated the willingness to help the 9/11 attack victims and their families in their lawsuit against Saudi Arabia. The mastermind is said to have demanded the elimination of his death sentence in the exchange for his cooperation.

Release of new images

On September 9, 2009, photographs of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and

Ammar al Baluchi Ammar Al-Baluchi ( ar, عمار البلوشي, ; also transliterated as Amar Al-Balochi, born Ali Abdul Aziz Ali,Shannon, Elaine. ''Time''Al-Qaeda Moneyman Caught 1 May 2003 29 August 1977) is a Pakistani citizen in U.S. custody at Guantanamo ...

were published on the Internet and widely in US and international media. Camp authorities have strict controls over the taking and distribution of images of the Guantanamo captives. Journalists and

VIP A very important person or personage (VIP or V.I.P.) is a person who is accorded special privileges due to their high social status, influence or importance. The term was not common until sometime after World War 2 by RAF pilots. Examples inc ...

s visiting Guantanamo are not allowed to take any pictures that show the captives' faces. Journalists may see " high value" captives such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed only when they are in the court room, where cameras are not allowed. But, on September 9, 2009, independent counter-terrorism researchers found new images of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his nephew Ammar al Baluchi on "jihadist websites". According to Carol Rosenberg, writing in ''

The Miami Herald The ''Miami Herald'' is an American daily newspaper owned by the McClatchy Company and headquartered in Doral, Florida, a city in western Miami-Dade County and the Miami metropolitan area, several miles west of Downtown Miami.International Committee of the Red Cross The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC; french: Comité international de la Croix-Rouge) is a humanitarian organization which is based in Geneva, Switzerland, and it is also a three-time Nobel Prize Laureate. State parties (signato ...

spokesman Bernard Barrett, under an agreement with prison camp staff that lets Red Cross delegates photograph detainees and send photos to family members." In November 2014, a Turkish manufacturer of over-the-counter hair removal cream was found to be using an image of a disheveled Mohammed in adverts for their product.

Manifesto

In January 2014, a 36-page "nonviolence manifesto" written by KSM was declassified and released by the US government. The title is "Khalid Sheikh Mohammad's Statement to the Crusaders of the Military Commissions in Guantanamo." The document outlines 3 parts, but appears to be just the first section, describing "the path to happiness." The subject writes to his captors and appears interested in converting his wider audience to Islam. The notes contain eight books with three Western authors and penciled initials with the date October 31, 2013.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammad and Sulaiman Abu Ghaith

Khalid Sheikh Mohammad has participated as a witness in the trials of two alleged al-Qaeda members,

Zacarias Moussaoui Zacarias Moussaoui (Arabic: زكريا موسوي, '; born May 30, 1968) is a French member of al-Qaeda who pleaded guilty in U.S. federal court to conspiring to kill citizens of the United States as part of the September 11 attacks. He is serv ...

and

Salim Hamdan Salim Ahmed Hamdan () (born February 25, 1968) is a Yemeni man, captured during the invasion of Afghanistan, declared by the United States government to be an illegal enemy combatant and held as a detainee at Guantanamo Bay from 2002 to November 2 ...

. ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...

'' reporter Richard Serrano wrote: "In 2006, his interrogation summaries were read aloud in the capital murder trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called 20th hijacker, and Moussaoui was spared the death penalty. Two years later, different Mohammed statements were read in a military commission trial, or tribunal, that led to the release from Guantanamo Bay of Osama bin Laden's chauffeur, Salim Hamdan." Stanly Cohen, an attorney for Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, requested to interview Mohammad, who they described as "the most qualified person alive" to assist in Abu Gaith's defense. Mohammad, through his attorney David Nevin, agreed to be interviewed, but only "in the absence of government personnel whether physically present or by listening or recording remotely." Mohammed instead drafted a 14-page statement response to 451 interrogatories submitted by Cohen. In the response, Mohammad called Abu Ghaith, a "pious man" and "spellbinding speaker" who, to the best of his knowledge, did not play any military role in al-Qaeda operations and had no military training. Mohammed argued that Western foreign policy has been hypocritical in that it allowed for the rise of the Mujahideen in the Soviet War, but that Western media has since branded the Mujahideen "terrorists" or "foreign fighters". He further claimed that the Taliban's strict Islamic rule had restored security to Afghanistan in the 1990s. U.S. District Judge

Lewis A. Kaplan Lewis A. Kaplan (born December 23, 1944) is a United States district judge serving on the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. He took senior status on February 1, 2011. Education, career, personal life Born in S ...

ruled that neither Mohammad's statement nor testimony were relevant to Abu Ghaith's trial, and thus inadmissible.

Media

The crime documentary series ''Mugshots'' released an episode, "KSM's Confessions" which tracks Khalid Sheikh Mohammed from New York to Pakistan.

Early life and education

Philippines 1994–1995

Qatar, avoiding arrest

Alleged terrorist activities

Operation Bojinka

Relationship with Osama bin Laden

Plan for September 11, 2001 attacks

Capture, interrogation, and torture

Report that interrogators abused his children

Transfer to Guantánamo and hearing before his Combatant Status Review Tribunal

List of confessions

Confession used in Sheikh Omar's defense

Prosecution in France

Trial for role in September 11 attacks

Legal rulings affecting him

Release of new images

Manifesto

Khalid Sheikh Mohammad and Sulaiman Abu Ghaith

Media

See also