Khalid Sheikh Mohammed cemented his position as al-Qaeda's most ambitious operational planner when he confessed in a US military tribunal to planning and supporting 31 terrorist attacks, topped by the Sept. 11 attacks, that have killed thousands of people since the early 1990s.
The gruesome attacks range from the suicide hijackings of Sept. 11 -- which killed nearly 3,000 -- to a 2002 shooting on an island off Kuwait that killed a US Marine.
Many plots, including a previously undisclosed plan to kill several former US presidents, were never carried out or were foiled by international counterterrorism authorities.
"I was responsible for the 9/11 operation from A to Z," Mohammed said in a statement read on Saturday during a Combatant Status Review Tribunal at the US detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Mohammed's confession was read by a member of the US military who is serving as his personal representative.
The Pentagon released a 26-page transcript of the closed-door proceedings on Wednesday night. Some material was omitted.
Mohammed, known as KSM among government officials, was last seen after his capture in March 2003, when he was photographed looking haggard and wearing a dingy white T-shirt. He disappeared for more than three years into a secret detention system run by the CIA.
In his first public statements since his capture, his radical ideology and self-confidence came through. He expressed regret for taking the lives of children and said Islam does not give a "green light" to killing.
Yet he finds room for exceptions.
"The language of the war is victims," he said.
In laying out his role in 31 attacks, his words drew al-Qaeda closer to plots of the early 1990s than the group has previously been linked, including the 1993 World Trade Center truck bombing in which six people died.
Six people with links to global terror networks were convicted in federal court and sentenced to life in prison for that attack.
Mohammed made clear that al-Qaeda wanted to down a second trans-Atlantic aircraft during the operation of would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid.
He also confessed to the beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in a section of the statement that was excised from the public document. Pearl was abducted in January 2002 in Pakistan while researching a story on Islamic militancy. Mohammed has long been a suspect in the slaying, which was captured on video.
US President George W. Bush announced that Mohammed and 13 other alleged terror operatives had been moved from secret CIA prisons to the US Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay last year. They are considered the 14 most significant captures since Sept. 11.
The military began the hearings last Friday to determine whether the 14 should be declared "enemy combatants" to be held indefinitely and prosecuted by military tribunals.
If the 14 are declared enemy combatants, as expected, the military would then draft and file charges against them.
In listing the 28 attacks he planned and three others he supported, Mohammed said he tried to kill international leaders including the late pope John Paul II, former US president Bill Clinton and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.
He said he planned the 2002 bombing of a Kenya beach resort frequented by Israelis and the failed missile attack on an Israeli passenger jet after it took off from Mombasa, Kenya.
He also said he was responsible for the bombing of a nightclub in Bali, Indonesia. In 2002, 202 people were killed when two nightclubs there were bombed.
Other plots he said he was responsible for included planned attacks against the Sears Tower in Chicago, the Empire State Building and the New York Stock Exchange in New York City, the Panama Canal, and Big Ben and Heathrow Airport in London -- none of which happened.
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