Terrorists' Sept. 11 plot a many-tentacled creature
By DANIEL RUBIN and MICHAEL DORGAN Knight Ridder Newspapers
Abu Zubaydah, the highest-ranking al-Qaida leader now in custody, has told American officials that Mohammed was the brains behind the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, as well as the first Trade Center bombing in 1993 and the failed 1995 "Bojinka" plot in Manila.
At least one scrap of evidence suggests that Zubaydah may be telling the truth about Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. Intelligence officials said Mohamed Atta, the commander of the suicide hijackers, called Mohammed on Sept. 10.
The conversation was monitored by the National Security Agency but translated from Arabic only after the attacks that killed more than 3,000 persons. Intelligence officials believe that Mohammed, using coded language, gave Atta final approval for the four teams of hijackers to proceed.
A $25 million bounty has been offered for Mohammed's capture. U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials call him the Forrest Gump of al-Qaida, the face that always turns up when investigators review the group's terrorist operations.
"He gets more interesting every day," a senior U.S. intelligence official said, adding that if he had to decide between catching Osama bin Laden and catching Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, he might prefer the latter.
"Bin Laden is unquestionably the leader, the symbol and the recruiting poster," the official said. "But it's looking more and more like Khalid actually makes things happen."
Said French terrorism expert and U.N. Security Council consultant Roland Jacquard: "He is probably the only man who knows all the pieces of the puzzle."
Where Atta and the other Sept 11 hijackers were stealthy, Mohammed is flamboyant. Atta, his main foot soldier, was thin and disciplined; Mohammed is neither. The hijackers slipped in and out of Econo Lodges; Mohammed preferred five-star hotels. He entertained in karaoke bars and mirrored go-go clubs. In Manila, to impress a dentist he was dating, he once chartered a helicopter and buzzed overhead while waving and chatting by cell phone.
Colonel Mendoza knew Khalid Shaikh Mohammed as Abdul Majid, a flamboyant Saudi businessman who lived in the top floor of Manila's Josefa Apartments with Ramzi Yousef, was later convicted in the first World Trade Center blast, which killed six and injured around 1,000. Some officials say Yousef is Mohammed's nephew; others aren't sure.
Mohammed used other names: Salim Ali, Ashrai Refaat, Nabith Renin, Khalid Abdul Waddod and Fahd Bin Abdullah Bin Khalid, maybe a dozen pseudonyms in all. He isn't a Saudi or Qatari businessman, as he claimed in Manila,but a Kuwaiti- born and U.S.-educated Pakistani with a vast network of contacts and covers.