KSM's Confession: Allegedly Masterminded Many Terrorist Acts

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2007/3/15/73117.shtml?s=lh

Mohammed Allegedly Masterminded Many Terrorist Acts
NewsMax.com Wires Thursday, March 15, 2007

WASHINGTON -- From Australia to Azerbaijan, Panama to the Philippines, the
alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks has claimed responsibility for
plotting a series of mass casualty terrorist attacks and assassinations of
world leaders for al-Qaida that were either thwarted or never came to pass.

In confessing to more than 30 actual or alleged al-Qaida strikes, including
9/11 and the earlier truck bombing of the World Trade Center, between 1993
and his capture in 2003, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed confirmed long-held
suspicions of his involvement.

He also revealed al-Qaida plans to hit western targets around the globe that
have not been earlier discussed by intelligence officials or contained in
terror alerts.

Details of the confession, released Wednesday by the Pentagon, were not
immediately able to be confirmed, but many refer to locations for which the
United States and other nations have issued terrorism warnings based on what
they have deemed credible threats from 1993 to the present.

Among them, according to the extraordinary confession:

In the United States, Mohammed said he had planned or helped plan a second
wave of attacks after 9/11 on nuclear power plants, Library Tower in Los
Angeles, the Sears Tower in Chicago, the Plaza Bank building in Seattle, and
the Empire State Building, stock exchange and other financial institutions
and bridges in New York. Most of these facilities had been the subject of
earlier warnings.

He also said he had coordinated shoe bomber Richard Reid's December 2001
attempt to blow up a trans-Atlantic airliner en route to the United States
and that a second plane also had been targeted for similar destruction at
the same time.

Overseas, Mohammed mentioned:

Britain, where he said he planned attacks on London's Heathrow Airport,
Canary Wharf and Big Ben, most of which have been previously mentioned as
terror targets by British authorities. Mohammed did not speak of the London
transport attacks of 2005, which occurred after his detention.

The Philippines, home to the al-Qaida affiliated Abu Sayyaf Group, from
where Mohammed said he had surveyed and financed plots to kill the late Pope
John Paul II in 1994, then-President Clinton in 1995 and former President
Carter, as well as blow up the Israeli Embassy in Manila. The capital was
also the center of a thwarted plan to blow up a dozen U.S. passenger jets
over the Pacific in the mid-1990s, for which Mohammed admitted
responsibility, saying he had personally monitored a round-trip Pan Am
flight from Manila to Seoul that could have been a target.

Indonesia, home to the al-Qaida affiliated Jemaah Islamiyah, where Mohammed
said he was directly behind the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings in Indonesia
that killed 202 people, many of them Australian tourists. He said he had
also planned apparently unsuccessful or unexecuted attacks on the U.S. and
Israeli embassies in Jakarta and an oil facility in Sumatra he said was
owned by the "Jewish former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger."

Thailand, which has been hit by a spate of Muslim-Buddhist violence in
recent months, where Mohammed said planned attacks on nightclubs frequented
by American and British citizens and was responsible for "surveying and
financing" a plot to destroy an Israeli El Al airliner taking off from the
Bangkok airport. These have not taken place.

Kenya, where Mohammed claimed responsibility for the 2002 bombing of an
Israeli-owned Indian Ocean resort that killed 18 and the near simultaneous
attempted shoot-down of an Israeli passenger jet there the same day.
Mohammed did not mention the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi
and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

Israel, where Mohammed said he had dispatched holy warriors to conduct
surveillance on "several strategic targets" and planned to crash planes into
buildings in the tourist resort of Eilat using aircraft departing Saudi
Arabia that has not yet happened.

Panama, where Mohammed claimed to have been behind a plot to bomb and
destroy the Panama Canal that has not occurred.

Turkey, where Mohammed said he had financed operations to hit U.S., British
and Israeli targets. Several attacks have taken place in Turkey since
Mohammed's arrest but none have been publicly linked to him.

South Korea, where Mohammed claimed to have planned to attack U.S. military
bases and nightclubs frequented by Americans. None have been hit.

Australia, Azerbaijan, India and Japan, where Mohammed said he planned to
blow up either the U.S. and Israeli embassies or both. None of those
facilities have been attacked.

Other alleged intended targets mentioned by Mohammed on which there have
been no attacks are NATO headquarters in Brussels and U.S. military vessels
and oil tankers plying the Straits of Hormuz and Gibraltar and the Port of
Singapore, one of the world's largest.



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