The likely mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks is a Kuwaiti-born lieutenant of Osama bin Laden who had previously plotted to attack the World Trade Center and to bomb several airliners simultaneously, a top U. S. counter terrorism official says.
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, one of the FBI’s most-wanted terrorists, is at large in Afghanistan or nearby, the law enforcement official told The Associated Press on Tuesday. U. S. investigators believe Mohammed, working under bin Laden’s leadership, planned many aspects of the Sept.
11 attacks.’ ‘There’s lots of links that tie him to 9-11,’ ‘ the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. ”He was intricately involved.’ ‘Mohammed is accused of working with Ramzi Yousef in the first bombing of the World Trade Center, which left six dead in 1993. He and Yousef also were accused of plotting in 1995 to bomb several trans-Pacific airliners heading for the United States. Yousef, now serving a life sentence in the United States after being convicted in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, also is believed to have planned to crash a plane into CIA headquarters. Mohammed was charged by federal prosecutors in New York in 1996 in connection with the alleged 1995 plot.
The State Department is offering a reward of up to $25 million for information leading to his capture. Other bin Laden lieutenants are also believed to have helped put together the Sept. 11 attacks, the official said. But evidence is mounting that Mohammed was at the center of the operational planning. A second U. S.
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official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, acknowledged that Mohammed played a critical role in planning the attacks but said questions remain about the extent of his leadership. The official said other bin Laden lieutenants, including Abu Zubaydah, now in U. S. custody, are also believed to have played top organizational roles.
Mohammed, 36, is one of the highest-ranking al-Qaida leaders still at large, officials said, and continues to plan attacks against U. S. interests. Although he was born in Kuwait, officials there say he is a Pakistani national and note that people born in Kuwait do not automatically qualify for citizenship. According to the counter terrorism official, within three months of Sept. 11, the FBI learned that Mohammed had performed some financial transactions to fund the attacks; since then the United States has gathered other significant evidence pointing to him as the key planner.
The official declined to go into detail, citing a need to protect intelligence information. The FBI describes Mohammed as in his mid-30 s, slightly overweight and sometimes wearing a beard and glasses. His aliases include Ashraf Ref aat Nabi th Henin, Khalid Abdul Wa dood, Salem Ali and Fahd Bin Abdallah Bin Khalid. U. S. officials have repeatedly said that capturing or killing bin Laden’s cadre of lieutenants – men like Mohammed – is a key goal in the war on terrorism.
In some ways, they are considered as dangerous as bin Laden: Where al-Qaida’s leader serves as an inspiration to his followers, his top aides conduct the nuts-and-bolts planning of attacks. The lieutenants are said to pick targets and attack dates, maintain operational secrecy and provide money and training to the foot soldiers and overseas cells chosen to carry them out – sometimes at the cost of their own lives.
