(Guardian-UK) Yosri Fouda of the Arabic television channel al-Jazeera is the only journalist to have interviewed Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the al Qaeda military commander arrested at the weekend: It was only after my 48-hour encounter with the masterminds of the "Holy Tuesday" operations in New York and Washington that the world, including the CIA and FBI, came to learn that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is al Qaeda's number three and that his importance to the group as a terrorist organizer in the field exceeds that of his boss, bin Laden. I looked Khalid in the eye and asked: "Did you do it?" The reference to September 11 was implicit. Khalid responded with little fanfare: "I am the head of the al Qaeda military committee," he began, "and Ramzi [Ramzi bin al-Shibh] is the coordinator of the Holy Tuesday operation. And yes, we did it." "About two and a half years before the holy raids on Washington and New York, the military committee held a meeting during which we decided to start planning for a martyrdom operation inside America. As we were discussing targets, we first thought of striking at a couple of nuclear facilities but decided against it for fear it would go out of control....It was eventually decided to leave out nuclear targets for now." Was al Qaeda still active? "Yes it is, and it always will be as long as we are in jihad against the infidels and the Zionists."
2003-03-04 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive