Shock and scepticism greet alleged 9/11 confessions

The alleged No 3 in al-Qaida has long been suspected of being the mastermind behind the 2001 attacks in America but, if true, Mr Mohammed's most recent admissions would confirm his as a man the US has described as "one of history's most infamous terrorists".

Mr Mohammed was arrested in Pakistan in 2003 and spent time in secret CIA prisons before being moved with 13 others to a maximum security compound at Guantánamo Bay last year.

His list of confessions, in which he places himself at the centre of al-Qaida plots spanning a decade, are contained in the transcript of a tribunal held behind closed doors at the Cuban camp.

In it he alleges his involvement in nearly three dozen attacks - many of which were foiled - including the Bali bombings, the failed shoe bomb plot, the 1993 World Trade Centre truck bombings and plans to destroy Heathrow airport, Canary Wharf and Big Ben.

Bruce Hoffman, a leading terrorism expert at Georgetown University, said Mr Mohammed's long "logical and rational" speech revealed his central role as the al-Qaida mastermind.

"It's almost every single al-Qaida plot up until he was apprehended," Mr Hoffman said. "This just shows that [al-Qaida leader Osama] bin Laden and [the suspected al-Qaida No 2] Ayman al-Zawahiri can make threats, but Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was the go-to guy."

Mark Denbeaux, a Seton Hall University law professor who represented two Tunisians held at Guantánamo Bay, said the transcripts showed that Mr Mohammed might be the only detainee who would qualify as an "enemy combatant".

"The government has finally brought someone into Gitmo who apparently admits to being someone who could be called an enemy combatant," Mr Denbeaux said. "None of the others rise to this level. The government has now got one."

Mr Mohammed is one of 14 Guantánamo detainees undergoing secret hearings to determine whether they should be declared "enemy combatants" who can be held indefinitely and prosecuted by military tribunals.

But critics of both the interrogation methods used at the camp and the exclusion of independent observers from the hearings today dismissed the confessions.

Mr Mohammed is thought to have gone through torture, including "waterboarding", in which the suspect being interrogated is strapped to a board and placed under water. The technique was reportedly approved for use on Mr Mohammed by the US justice department and the CIA.

More
http://www.guardian.co.uk/guantanamo/story/0,,2034561,00.html