Organizer of Sept.11 terrorism attacks convicted in 1996

US authorities have identified the organizer of the Sept.11 terrorist attacks. Khalid Shaikh Mohammed is most likely the man who organized the attacks. As could be expected, Mohammed is a close aide to bin Laden and an al Qaeda leader. In October of 2001, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was on the list of the 20 most dangerous terrorists published by special services. The terrorist is extremely dangerous, which is proved by the fact that a reward promised for information about the man is extremely high, $25 million. Several years ago, the US State Department promised to pay only $5 million for information about Khalid. Now, the information is worth five times as much.

Although nearly all the news agencies of the world report on Khalid today, there is practically no information about this man.

According to different sources, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was born on March 1, 1964 (other sources mention April 14, 1965) in Kuwait, he is now a citizen of Kuwait. Khalid uses different pseudonyms; he is an expert for mines and explosions, and speaks the Arabic and Persian languages. He was trained to operate with mines in Afghanistan, which is quite explainable. Khalid became popular in 1995, when a plot of Muslim extremists code-named "Explosive Project" was accidentally disclosed in Manila. The plotters planned to hijack one (or better several) US airliners flying over the Pacific Ocean. An accidental fire in a secret headquarters where the terrorists met ruined the plan. Explosive materials were stored in the apartment; special services managed to prevent acts of terrorism, but Khalid escaped. Nevertheless, Khalid’s guilt was evident, and the court of New York in the southern district passed a verdict of ‘guilty’ against him in 1996. Probably, the terrorist knew about it and took revenge on September 11, 2001. It is still not clear why this man coming from successful Kuwait (which was, by the way, liberated from Iraqi occupation by the USA in 1990) took up terrorism.

Khalid is a good conspirato;, it will take a long time for the US authorities to catch him. And although the man has been searched for since 1995, he managed within this period to organize earth-shattering acts of terrorism. Some sources suppose that Khalid may be hiding in Pakistan or Afghanistan. It is not clear whether this is true or not.

Oleg Artyukov PRAVDA.Ru

Translated by Maria Gousseva

Read the original in Russian: http://www.pravda.ru/main/2002/06/05/42256.html