"I was responsible for 9/11 ... from A to Z," Al-Qaida terrorist confesses

WASHINGTON — Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, confessed to planning and funding the al-Qaida operation and many others, including a plot to hit a Seattle landmark, according to documents released Wednesday by the Pentagon.

"I was responsible for the 9/11 operation, from A to Z," Mohammed told a panel of military officers through a personal representative, who read off a list of 31 terrorist acts that were either carried out or planned but not executed.

Declaring himself an enemy of the United States, Mohammed, 43, claimed some responsibility for many of the major terrorist attacks on U.S. and allied targets for more than a decade.

He told a Combatant Status Review Tribunal at the U.S. detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, that he is at war with the United States and that the deaths of innocent people are an unfortunate reality of that conflict.

The confession likely clears the way for the Pentagon to try Mohammed, who the U.S. says was Osama bin Laden's operations chief, before a military war-crimes court that's empowered to sentence alleged terrorists to death.

According to transcripts Defense Department officials released Wednesday night, Mohammed later spoke in broken English and Arabic, saying: "For sure, I'm American enemies."

U.S. officials first publicly linked Mohammed to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in June 2002. The Sept. 11 commission report, issued three years ago, cited several interrogation reviews compiled by U.S. intelligence agencies in which he described, in detail, his role in the attacks.

A tip by an al-Qaida co-conspirator led to his arrest in Pakistan in March 2003, and his appearance before the tribunal at Guantánamo on Saturday was the first time he was allowed to make a public statement. His capture was followed by years of detention in secret CIA facilities, where he was held without contact with the outside world.

In the transcripts, Mohammed alludes to abusive treatment at the hands of his captors.

In a section of the statement that was blacked out, he confessed to the beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, The Associated Press reported. Pearl was abducted in January 2002 in Pakistan while researching a story on Islamic militancy. Mohammed has long been a suspect in the killing.

Along with the transcript, the Pentagon also released similar records from two other hearings for alleged terrorists. They were part of a group of 14 high-value detainees transferred to Guantánamo from CIA custody in September on orders from President Bush. Each detainee is entitled to such a review to determine whether he is an enemy combatant and whether he should continue to be held in U.S. custody.

The hearings were closed to the public and included classified information that was edited out of the transcripts.

Abu Faraj al-Libi, who allegedly aided fighters in Afghanistan and Pakistan, did not appear at his hearing. A representative read a statement on his behalf, in which he said al-Libi was eager to enter the U.S. judicial system but he had been held for "a very, very long period of time" without any indication about his future.

Ramzi Binalshibh, who also played a role in the Sept. 11 attacks, did not cooperate and did not present any information at his hearing.

Mohammed described himself as bin Laden's operational director for the attacks and as al-Qaida's military operational commander for "all foreign operations around the world." He said he directed al-Qaida efforts to develop biological weapons.

He claimed to have been "responsible" for the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, Richard Reid's attempt to ignite a shoe bomb on an airliner over the Atlantic Ocean and the bombing of a nightclub in Bali, Indonesia.

Mohammed also described several other plots that never came about, such as attacks on buildings in California, Chicago, Washington state and the New York Stock Exchange.

Mohammed said at the Guantánamo hearing that a Washington state landmark was on the list for a second wave of al-Qaida attacks against U.S. targets.

He said the "Plaza Bank [in] Washington State" was targeted along with the Sears Tower in Chicago, the Empire State Building in New York and the Library Tower in Los Angeles. FBI officials have said Mohammed was likely referring to the 76-floor Columbia Center in downtown Seattle.

His statement confirms information about planned al-Qaida attacks on the two tallest buildings on the West Coast referenced in the 9/11 commission's report, released in 2004. Seattle FBI officials confirmed the same year that Mohammed had talked about flying a jetliner into the tallest building in Washington, the 935-foot black skyscraper located at the corner of Cherry Street and Fifth Avenue.

Despite Mohammed's claims, it is unclear how much involvement he could have had in the 31 separate attacks he listed. The Sept. 11 commission that reviewed the attacks described Mohammed as captivated by "a spectacle of destruction with KSM as the self-cast star: the superterrorist."

In the transcript, Mohammed contends he and al-Qaida are not terrorists but are engaged in a long struggle against U.S. oppression in the Middle East. He apologizes for killing children in the Sept. 11 attacks.

"Because war, for sure, there will be victims," he said. "When I said I'm not happy that three thousand been killed in America. I feel sorry even. I don't like to kill children and the kids."

Material from Seattle Times staff writer Mike Carter and Times archives is included in this report, along with material from McClatchy Newspapers.