Today’s Miami Herald leads
Is Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the alleged architect of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, being held here?
Army Maj. Jeffrey Weir, a prison spokesman, would neither confirm nor deny whether Mohammed was being held in Gitmo. He went on to tease the press.
The answer, he said, will be available Friday in a raft of paperwork being released by the Pentagon.
Friday is when the Bush Administration must release Guantanamo Bay prisoners’ 2004-2005 status review hearings forms with the names appearing.
A captive facing conspiracy charges, when being questioned by the Military Commission judge, asked to be moved to a cell alongside the man known by his acronym “KSM.”
Speculation is that the monogram stands for Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the alleged architect of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
We all remember that nearly three years ago to the day he was captured in Pakistan looking more like Rumpledstiltskin than a terrorist.
There’s no doubt KSM is a nasty piece of work. Witness this bit of his biography.
Mohammed also has been linked to the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000; Richard Reid’s foiled attempt to blow up an airliner with a shoe bomb in 2001; last April’s bombings at the El Ghriba synagogue in Djerba, Tunisia; and the Bali bombings in October. CNN, March 4, 2003
KSM has been a profligate stool pigeon, according to the Feds, and as reported in Time Magazine, beginning his singing career within two weeks of his capture.
Other high-level al-Qaeda detainees previously disclosed some of the names, but Mohammed, until recently al-Qaeda’s chief operating officer and the brains behind the 9/11 attacks, has volunteered new ones. He has also added crucial details to the descriptions of other suspects and filled in important gaps in what U.S. intelligence knows about al-Qaeda’s practices.
The hapless and electronically inept captive who spilled the beans regarding KSM is Yemeni, Ali Hamza al Bahlul, 37, who
. . .is charged with conspiracy to attack civilian targets and commit murder, and allegedly made al Qaeda recruiting videos, including one ”glorifying” the USS Cole attack in 2000.
He allegedly also served as Osama bin Laden’s bodyguard around the time of the 911 attacks, and, according to his charge sheet, unsuccessfully tried to arrange a satellite link as bin Laden fled Kandahar, Afghanistan, to watch news reports about the attack.
I mean the chance that among the rag-tag at Guantanamo is a real 9/11 planner must be about zero.
If they are coming up with a 9/11 plotter now (after four-and-a-half years with no crime investigation), Bush’s ratings must be dropping.
Oh, they are!
I think you have the scoop de jour. I am sure this will now “unfold” in Time with great drama.
Yahoo News:
Released 23 minutes ago as of this posting. Expect somewhere we’ll eventually see the actual list. Won’t that be fun?
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GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba Mar 3, 2006 (AP)– After four years of secrecy, the Pentagon released documents Friday that contain the names of hundreds of detainees held at a U.S. military prison. The released resulted from a victory by The Associated Press in a Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit.
The Bush administration had hidden the identities, home countries and other information about the men, who were accused of taking up arms against the United States. The administration argued that releasing the identities would violate the detainees’ privacy and could endanger them and their families.
An unidentifiable detainee spends time outside his cell at Camp Delta Four AP Photo/Andres LeightonMost of the men were captured during the 2001 U.S.-led war that drove the Taliban from power in Afghanistan and sent Osama bin Laden deeper into hiding.
● Judge Questions Gitmo Force-Feeding
“But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.”
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