Khalid Shaikh Mohammed

Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (Aliases: Ashraf Refaat Nabith Henin, Khalid Adbul Wadood, Salem Ali, and Fahd Bin Adballah Bin Khalid) (b. 1964/5) is widely reported to have been the military head of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda organization, and was reportedly the mastermind of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack and other al-Qaeda attacks. On March 1, 2003, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was reported to have been arrested in Pakistan. He was previously reported arrested or killed in Pakistan on September 11, 2002.

History

He is usually reported to have been born in Kuwait of Pakistani parents. His date of birth has been variously reported as March 1, 1964 or April 14, 1965.

He attended Chowan College[?], a small Baptist school in North Carolina, for a few years (beginning in 1983) before transferring to the North Carolina Agriculture and Technology University[?] and completing a degree in engineering in 1986. Subsequently he went to Afghanistan and joined the fight against the Soviet Union. (Some sources believe he was fighting in Afghanistan before he came to the United States.)

In 1996, he was secretly indicted by the Southern District of the state of New York for his alleged involvement in a plot based in Manila to destroy twelve commercial airliners flying Asian-Pacific routes. In December, 1994, the conspirators had engaged in a test on a Phillippines airliner using only about 10 percent of the explosives that were to be used in each of the bombs to be planted on United States airliners. The test resulted in the death of a Japanese national on board a flight from the Phillippines to Japan.

On September 11, 2002, members of Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) variously claimed to have killed or captured Mohammed during a raid in Karachi which resulted in the capture of Ramzi Binalshibh. Some people have reported that Mohammed escaped, but that his family was captured.

On March 1, 2003, the ISI reported that they had captured him in a raid in Rawalpindi[?], Pakistan. The raid was variously reported to be all-Pakistani, in the presence of the United States FBI, or a joint raid with the FBI. Following the report of the capture, some Pakistani officials say he was immediately transferred to US custody, while others said he remained in Pakistani custody. The raid took place at the home of Ahmed Abdul Qudoos, who was also reportedly arrested as an al-Qaida agent. Qudoos' family told media that Mohammed was not in the house, that Qudoos was disabled and had never been associated with al-Qaeda, and that the police conducting the raids did not ask for Mohammed. Other newspaper accounts said that former Taliban officials in Pakistan said that Mohammed was not captured and was still at large.

Many reports have indicated that Mohammed was either an asset or a member of the ISI during the 1980s or 1990s, and that he has carried a Pakistani passport since the 1980s.

Mohammed is also widely described as living a lavish lifestyle, even while he was on the run from the law.

Other Attacks Mohammed is also a suspect in the USS Cole bombing, the Tunisian synagogue bombing, and the murder of US journalist Daniel Pearl in Pakistan.

External links

• BBC News story: Top al-Qaeda suspect in US hands (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/2812181.stm)
• http://www.fbi.gov/mostwant/terrorists/terkmohammed.htm