9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s sick confession to beheading American – as he agrees to plead guilty to attack

THE mastermind behind the 9/11 terror attacks once made a horrendous confession to investigators about beheading an American journalist.

Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the suspected orchestrator behind the September 11, 2001 attacks against the United States , reached a plea deal with prosecutors at Guantánamo Bay that will allow him and his co-conspirators to avoid the death penalty.

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Mohammed confessed to US interrogators at Guantánamo Bay about how he beheaded an American journalist in 2002 despite being warned by senior al-Qaeda military commander Sayf al-Adl, according to documents published by WikiLeaks in 2011.

al-Adl strongly cautioned Mohammed about killing Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl after he was kidnapped by Islamist militants in Karachi, Pakistan, in January 2002.

The commander advised Mohammed that it would be best if Pearl were “returned to one of the previous groups who held him, or freed.”

However, Mohammed turned to the guidance of another Al Qaeda leader, Sharif al-Masri, the group’s chief financial officer, who also disagreed with al-Adl’s concern, according to the documents.

Mohammed described to US interrogators how “Pearl was taken to the house of Al Qaeda’s finance chief in Pakistan, Saud Memon, and murdered.”

PLEA DEAL

On Wednesday, Mohammed, 59, and accomplices Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi agreed to plead guilty to murdering 2,976 people during the 2001 attacks.

In exchange, the three suspected terrorists will serve life sentences on the southern portion of the American Naval base in Cuba .

Prosecutors said the deal was made to bring some “finality and justice to the case,” which has been lingering in the judicial process since the three men were arrested by US officials in 2003.

Mohammed was held in secret CIA prisons up until his transfer to Guantánamo Bay in September 2006.

But before being moved to Guantánamo, government officials interrogated Mohammed and his accomplices for years, torturing them and keeping them isolated in undisclosed locations.

Mohammed endured 183 rounds of waterboarding – a form of torture where a person experiences the sensation of drowning when water is poured over a cloth covering their face.

TERROR ATTACKS

In the WikiLeaks documents, Mohammed boasted about the 9/11 attack, saying the operation was his “dream and life’s work.”

On September 11, 2001, al-Qaeda militants flew two commercial planes into the Twin Towers at the World Trade Center in New York City .

A third plane hit the Pentagon, while a fourth, which was planned to strike Washington DC , crashed in a field in Pennsylvania after crew members and passengers stormed the cockpit.

The heinous attacks sparked the war on terror after President George W. Bush ordered the US military to invade Afghanistan and Iraq in search of the terrorists responsible.

Mohammed and Mustafa al-Hawsawi, 55, were captured by US officials in Pakistan in March 2003.

Walid bin Attash was captured in Karachi, Pakistan, in April 2003.

9/11 timeline of events

On September 11, 2001, al-Qaeda operatives coordinated a terrorist attack against the United States, hijacking four commerical airplanes and crashing them into the Twin Towers and Pentagon.

Timeline:

• 5:45 am : Two hijackers get through security in Portland, Maine, and board a flight to Boston, where they will link up with three more hijackers and check in for American Airlines Flight 11 to Los Angeles.
• 7:59 am : American Airlines Flight 11 takes off. The plane is carrying 76 passengers, 11 crew members, and five hijackers.
• 8:15 am : United Airlines Flight 175, carrying 51 passengers, nine crew, and five hijackers, takes off from Boston to Los Angeles.
• 8:20 am : American Airlines Flight 77 takes off from Washington DC Dulles to Los Angeles. The plane is carrying 53 passengers, six crew members, and five hijackers.
• 8:42 am : United Airlines Flight 93 takes off from Newark. The plane is carrying 33 passengers, seven crew members, and four hijackers. The flight was bound for San Francisco.
• 8:46 am : Flight 11 crashes into the North Tower of the World Trade Center .
• 9:03 am : Flight 175 hits the South Tower of the World Trade Center.
• 9:36 am : Vice President Dick Cheney is evacuated by Secret Service agents to an undisclosed location.
• 9:37 am : Flight 77 hits the Pentagon building in Washington DC.
• 9:45 am : The US Capitol and White House are both evacuated.
• 9:59 am : The South Tower is the first to collapse after burning for around 56 minutes.
• 10:03 am : United Airlines flight 93 crashes into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The passengers and crew got together and stormed the cockpit of the hijacked plane. All on board are killed.
• 10:28 am : The North Tower collapses.
• 8:30 pm : President George W. Bush addresses the US from the White House regarding the attacks. Almost 3,000 Americans died in the terror attacks .

‘EXPLOITING US JUDICIAL SYSTEM’

The plea agreement between the three men and Guantánamo prospectors has sparked an outcry from families of 9/11 victims.

“I feel like I was kicked in the balls,” retired NYPD officer Jim Smith told the New York Post .

Smith’s wife, Moria Smith, died during the terror attacks.

“The prosecution and families have worked for 23 years to have our day in court to put on the record what these animals did to our loved ones.

“They took that opportunity away from us. They committed the worst crime in the history of our country.

“They should receive the highest penalty.”

The envisioned trial for the three suspected terrorists would have lasted 12-18 months, according to The New York Times .

“I’m angry and disappointed that enemy combatants who killed thousands of Americans in our homeland are able to exploit the US judicial system to their benefit, receiving support from American taxpayers for shelter, food, and healthcare for the rest of their lives,” retired cop Kathy Vigiano told the New York Post.

Vigiano lost her husband, NYPD detective Joseph Vigiano, during the attack.

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AFP

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