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WASHINGTON—Military prosecutors won't say whether they plan to use newly disclosed tape recordings in the upcoming trial of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed even though the tapes could solve the prosecution's problems with tainted evidence. A new book says Justice Department prosecutors were stunned to learn three years ago that the U.S. military had secretly tape-recorded incriminating comments that Mohammed made to fellow detainees during daily prison yard conversations but was not planning to use them at military tribunals. In "Kill or Capture: The War on Terror and the Soul of the Obama Presidency," journalist Daniel Klaidman says Mohammed was...

WASHINGTON – Responding to Justice Department memos declassified by the Obama administration last week, former Bush administration officials claim that CIA agents who repeatedly waterboarded Sept. 11 planner Khalid Sheikh Mohammed were not bent on torture but simply treating a raging case of head lice and dandruff. Fecal Harpy, a spokeswoman for former Vice President Dick Cheney, said Obama’s decision to release the memos had forced Cheney and other members of the Bush administration to counter with their own disclosures of sensitive information. Cheney was a tireless advocate of waterboarding in the aftermath of 9-11. “We hate to do this,...

The Obama administration has abandoned its plan to put Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, on trial in Lower Manhattan, according to administration officials. The reversal marks the latest setback for an administration that has been buffeted at every turn as it seeks to close the military detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. And without the backdrop of Ground Zero for a trial, the administration will also lose some of the rich symbolism associated with its attempt to forge a new approach to handling high-value al-Qaeda detainees. "New York is out," said an administration...

...We ask God to be released .. And about his brothers .. World will never forget .. It was the remains of a creature, and nine brothers and ten righteous - think them - what we are seeing the collapse of the global economy .. I have sabotaged the economic heart of the world .. Since then, we see the economy of disbelief falters wounded Kr .. Derek O God, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed .. I will not bury your world to be buried before the might of the U.S. entity dying .. And an economy based on Raby .. And...

It could jeopardize counterterror programs and thereby endanger Americans, but who cares? "9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to go on trial in New York," from the Telegraph, November 13 (thanks to Anne Crockett): President Barack Obama said the September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other Guantanamo Bay detainees will be put on trial in New York City. Speaking in Tokyo, Mr Obama said Mohammed, the self-proclaimed organiser of the al-Qaeda terrorist plot that killed almost 3,000 people in 2001, would face "exacting" US justice. Bringing such notorious suspects to US soil to face trial would be a key...

Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, confessed at a Guantanamo Bay military hearing that he planned and funded that al-Qaeda operation and said he was involved in more than two dozen other terrorist acts around the world, according to documents released by the Pentagon yesterday. In a rambling statement delivered Saturday to a closed-door military tribunal, Mohammed declared himself an enemy of the United States and claimed some responsibility for many of the major terrorist attacks on U.S. and allied targets over more than a decade. He said that he is at war with...

WASHINGTON – The Pentagon says the Guantanamo Bay prison meets the standard for humane treatment laid out in the Geneva Conventions, according to a report for President Barack Obama, who has ordered the terrorist detention center closed within a year. The report recommended some changes, including an increase in group recreation for some of the camp's more dangerous or less compliant prisoners, according to a government official familiar with the study. The report also suggested allowing those prisoners to gather in groups of three or more, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the report has not...

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba – Two alleged orchestrators of the 2001 attacks on America casually declared their guilt on Monday in a messy and perhaps final session of the Guantanamo war crimes court. This week's military hearings could be the last at Guantanamo — President-elect Barack Obama has said he would close the offshore prison and many expect him to suspend the military tribunals and order new trials in the U.S. Ramzi Binalshibh and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed architect of the terrorist attacks, were unapologetic about their roles during a series of outbursts as translators struggled to keep...

A full week of pretrial hearings is set to begin at the US naval base here Monday as incoming US president Barack Obama prepares to shut down the controversial "war on terror" detention camp. A mental competence hearing is scheduled for Ramzi bin al-Shibh, alleged co-conspirator of the September 11, 2001 attacks. All five men charged with plotting the attacks are expected to appear at the hearing. In December, the self-proclaimed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four co-defendants said they would submit guilty pleas to terror charges pending mental competency evaluations. Judge Stephen Henley said the defendants also wanted...

WASHINGTON: In a makeshift prison in the north of Poland, Al Qaeda's engineer of mass murder faced off against his Central Intelligence Agency interrogator. It was 18 months after the 9/11 attacks, and the invasion of Iraq was giving Muslim extremists new motives for havoc. If anyone knew about the next plot, it was Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. The interrogator, Deuce Martinez, a soft-spoken analyst who spoke no Arabic, had turned down a CIA offer to be trained in waterboarding. He chose to leave the infliction of pain and panic to others, the gung-ho paramilitary types whom the more cerebral interrogators...

9/11 Suspect: Artist Drew My Nose Too Big GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba, June 5, 2008 (CBS/AP) The confessed mastermind of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on America said a courtroom artist at his arraignment Thursday made his nose look too big. No photographers were allowed inside the courtroom for the first appearance of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four alleged coconspirators on war crimes charges. So it fell to artist Janet Hamlin to provide the world with the first image of the al Qaeda kingpin since his capture in Pakistan in 2003. Her rendering was reviewed to make sure it didn't...

Attorney General Michael Mukasey spoke at the London School of Economics today and surprised the audience with his comments on the application of the death penalty for the 9/11 plotters held at Guantanamo Bay. Given the administration’s support of the death penalty, they probably expected Mukasey to offer the usual justifications for it, especially for terrorists like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Mukasey argued instead that the US should not give them the martyrdom they seek, but rather a lifetime of obscure captivity: U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey said on Friday he hoped the six Guantanamo prisoners charged with the September 11...

9/11 mastermind coerced with Starbucks treats By staff writers UNLIMITED food and frappuccinos replaced waterboarding and sleep depravation in order to build a case against the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. FBI and military investigators gave Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and five other men, who have been charged with murder, food whenever they were hungry and Starbucks coffee as part of their interrogations as part of “rapport-building” methods, the Washington Post has reported. Officials told the newspaper that investigators used friendly methods – including letting the men decide when interviews would start – in the hope of the prisoners confirming...

About a year ago, I had dinner with a man who played a key role in the U.S. war on terror. The talk turned to allegations of torture. He said that our policy should be that we do not torture. And we should adhere to that policy. Unless, that is, a truly special situation comes up and we decide that we have to violate that policy in an extremely narrow set of circumstances. Then, we explain what we did — by that, I think he meant the executive branch would be open with members of Congress — and move on....

When Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was strapped down to the water-board, he felt humiliated -- not by the treatment but by the fact that a woman, a red-headed CIA supervisor, was allowed to witness the spectacle, a former intelligence officer told ABC News. The al Qaeda mastermind, known as KSM, stubbornly held out for about two minutes -- far longer than any of the other "high-value" terror targets who were subjected to the technique, the harshest from a list of six techniques approved for use by the CIA and Bush administration lawyers, sources said. Then KSM started talking, in idiomatic English...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Fourteen suspected terrorists listed as "high-value detainees" at the U.S. detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have been designated as enemy combatants, placing them in line to be charged and put on trial by the U.S. military, Pentagon officials said Thursday. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, alleged mastermind of 9/11, was moved to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, last September. The detainees -- including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind behind the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States -- were moved to Guantanamo Bay by the president last September after being held in secret CIA prisons around the world....

Two years later, the FBI put out an urgent all-points bulletin for Shukrijumah, depicting him as one of al-Qaida's most well-trained, intelligent and deadly operatives. He was described as the ultimate "sleeper agent," intent on attacking the United States, possibly with weapons of mass destruction. Law enforcement officials and terrorism experts now believe Shukrijumah is one of a handful of young, street-smart leaders of al-Qaida handpicked by Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, to keep the terrorist network alive and humming in the face of U.S.-led efforts to unravel it.

Al-Qaida operative became fountain of information for U.S. BY JOHN CREWDSON Chicago Tribune Moral and legal aspects aside, conventional wisdom is that torture simply isn't practical: that someone who is being tortured will say anything to make the torture stop, and that information gleaned through torture is therefore not reliable. Some former military and intelligence officers say, however, that physically aggressive interrogation techniques that some human rights groups consider torture can be effective in the short term. When asked for specifics, the technique they cite is "waterboarding," in which water is poured over a subject's face to create the sensation...

Al-Qaida Leader Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s Bosnian Links Emerging

The independent commission probing the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks has found evidence suggesting the attacks were intended to be carried out in May or June of that year, but were postponed by al Qaeda leaders because lead hijacker Mohamed Atta was not ready, according to sources privy to the panel's findings. New evidence gathered by the commission, including information obtained from U.S.-held detainees, indicates that Khalid Sheik Mohammed, mastermind of the attacks, persuaded al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden to postpone the attacks by several months because of the organizational problems, according to the sources, who declined to be identified...