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9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed dropped his legal defense and demanded the death penalty at his Guantanamo Bay arraignment hearing Thursday morning. U.S. military judge Marine Col. Ralph Kolman asked Mohammed if he understood he would be executed if convicted for his role in organizing largest ever terrorist attack on American soil. "Yes, this is what I wish, to be a martyr for a long time," Mohammed told Kohlman. "I will, God willing, have this, by you." Making sure Mohammed understood, Kohlmann asked again, “So you could be sentenced to death?” Kolhmann got an angry retort. "Maybe you didn't understand...

U.S. NAVAL STATION GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba, June 5, 2008 – Five accused terrorists heard the charges filed against them for their alleged role in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on America at an arraignment held here today. The judge, Marine Col. Ralph H. Kohlmann, informed Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak bin Attash, Ramzi bin al Shibh, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi of the nature of the charges filed against them, which include terrorism, conspiracy, hijacking and murder. All of the defendants voluntarily attended today’s arraignment proceedings. All five would reject court-appointed defense...

GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba (CNN) -- Two al Qaeda figures accused in the September 11 attacks told a U.S. military judge Thursday that they want to die as martyrs. "If I'm killed, I will be killed for the sake of God," said Ramzi bin al-Shibh, who is accused of helping coordinate the attacks. "I've been seeking to be a martyr for years." Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who claims to be the mastermind behind the attacks, said he wished to dismiss his lawyers and plead guilty. The judge, Marine Col. Ralph Kohlmann, asked Mohammed numerous times whether he understood that he faces the...

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba — The accused mastermind of the worst terror attack in U.S. history told a Guantanamo Bay military judge on Thursday that he wants to be put to death so he can become a martyr. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed also sang verses from the Koran, rejected his attorneys and told Judge Ralph Kohlmann, a Marine colonel, that he wants to represent himself at the war crimes trial. The judge warned that he faces execution if convicted of organizing the attacks on America. But the former No. 3 leader of Al Qaeda was insistent.

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba (AP) -- Khalid Sheikh Mohammed said Thursday that he would welcome the death penalty for his confessed role as mastermind of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. "Yes, this is what I wish, to be a martyr for a long time," Mohammed told a military judge who warned that he faces execution if convicted of organizing the attacks on America. "I will, God willing, have this, by you." The former No. 3 leader of al-Qaida and four alleged co-conspirators were being arraigned Thursday in their long-awaited first appearance before a war-crimes tribunal. All five face death...

Military defense lawyers are seeking to delay the upcoming arraignment of five Guantanamo detainees suspected in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The attorneys say the government has made it impossible to prepare for the June 5 hearing at the naval base in Cuba.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - Military lawyers for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, and four alleged coconspirators are arguing that charges against their clients should be dropped following illegal meddling by a Pentagon official. A motion filed late last week before a U.S. war-crimes tribunal at Guantanamo argues that the case has been tainted by the involvement of the tribunals' legal adviser, Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann, who was removed from another case because he lacked the required neutrality. The defendants are to be arraigned June 5 at the Guantanamo Bay Navy base...

ACLU wants to help defend alleged Sept. 11 mastermind By Carol Rosenberg McClatchy Newspapers The American Civil Liberties Union, which for years has scorned Pentagon military commissions as "kangaroo courts," announced Friday it will try to provide top civilian defense attorneys for alleged terrorists facing trial at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba -- with special emphasis on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Former Attorney General Janet Reno is among top lawyers who have endorsed the $8.5 million effort, which will help coordinate and defray the attorneys' expenses. ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero said a...

Attorney General Michael Mukasey spoke at the London School of Economics today and surprised the audience with his comments on the application of the death penalty for the 9/11 plotters held at Guantanamo Bay. Given the administration’s support of the death penalty, they probably expected Mukasey to offer the usual justifications for it, especially for terrorists like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Mukasey argued instead that the US should not give them the martyrdom they seek, but rather a lifetime of obscure captivity: U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey said on Friday he hoped the six Guantanamo prisoners charged with the September 11...

When Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was strapped down to the water-board, he felt humiliated -- not by the treatment but by the fact that a woman, a red-headed CIA supervisor, was allowed to witness the spectacle, a former intelligence officer told ABC News. The al Qaeda mastermind, known as KSM, stubbornly held out for about two minutes -- far longer than any of the other "high-value" terror targets who were subjected to the technique, the harshest from a list of six techniques approved for use by the CIA and Bush administration lawyers, sources said. Then KSM started talking, in idiomatic English...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Fourteen suspected terrorists listed as "high-value detainees" at the U.S. detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have been designated as enemy combatants, placing them in line to be charged and put on trial by the U.S. military, Pentagon officials said Thursday. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, alleged mastermind of 9/11, was moved to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, last September. The detainees -- including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind behind the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States -- were moved to Guantanamo Bay by the president last September after being held in secret CIA prisons around the world....

MIDDLETOWN — An "admitted illegal alien from Mexico" was arrested Wednesday for producing a half-dozen fake identification, Social Security and permanent residency cards and selling them to undercover police officers, the Butler County Sheriff's Office said Thursday. Abel Gaston Gudino-Arenas, 33, of Middletown, was charged with six counts of forgery — a fifth-degree felony — and no operator's license — a misdemeanor — for manufacturing fake documents, according to a news release from the sheriff's office. Deputies said the man admitted to manufacturing the cards for more than three months. Gudino-Arenas was arrested after he allegedly delivered a fake ID...

WASHINGTON - Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's claims that he was responsible for dozens of successful, foiled and imagined attacks in the past 15 years relies on a loose definition of the word "responsible." Officials say the 9/11 mastermind was key to some plots but a bit player in others. The 31 on his list range from the stunningly vicious suicide hijackings of Sept. 11, 2001, to others that current and former government officials say were more talk than concrete plans, such as a plot to kill Jimmy Carter and other former U.S. presidents. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity, noting...

Gee, so Muslims that committed the 9/11 massacre do not "believe" it was the CIA anymore? Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Acknowledges Planning Sept. 11 Attacks http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=anoJPX1ejzEs&refer=home Khalid Sheikh Mohammed acknowledged he was al-Qaeda's commander responsible for organizing the Sept . Pentagon: 9/11 mastermind confesses - Bradenton Herald http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/news/nation/16904479.htm Suspected Leader of Attacks on 9/11 Is Said to Confess - http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/15/us/15gitmo.html ____________________ Then again, Don't hold your breath, Oven after the 'chief' of Islamofascism, Islamic Jihad, terror on the west', his "honor" himself, Osama Bin Laden admitted it already with promising of more of the same... it didn't "convince" the Muslim world...

ALEXANDRIA, Virginia (Reuters) - The U.S. government knew by the 1990s how al Qaeda trained suicide operatives but missed capturing the man who masterminded the September 11 attacks about four years before they occurred, an FBI agent said on Tuesday. FBI agent Michael Anticev said in testimony at a sentencing trial for September 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui that the U.S. government knew by the mid 1990s that there were several al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan and other countries. Operatives at the training camps were taught how to carry out terrorist operations, including suicide missions, and were trained in how...

CBN.com – (CBN News) – On March 1st, 2003, near Karachi, Pakistan, authorities nabbed 9-11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Under interrogation, Mohammed talks. But, according to the 9-11 Commission Report, there was one thing that the Sheikh refused to come clean about: a notebook he possessed that contained U.S zip codes. Mohammed fumbled a nonsensical excuse about their being for e-mail. But officials suspect the zip codes are the locations of al Qaeda sleeper cells in the United States. Even though there has not been a major attack since 9-11, the experts we talked to say that does not mean...

Al-Qaida Leader Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s Bosnian Links Emerging

The Drudge scoop today is about alleged American al Qaeda Adam Gadahn. Here are some handy background links: -The FBI bulletin -Gadahn's Muslim manifesto posted on a USC website -Debbie Schlussel's report on Gadahn's radical imam -More on the Islamic Society of Orange County at Little Green Footballs -Blogger Jon at Right Side Redux did some poking around into Gadahn's past work for a little e-zine called Xenocide here -Robert Spencer reports on The New Face of al Qaeda -And before the anti-profiling absolutists start using Gadahn as their new poster boy, note that the FBI says he was just...

Much has been said here on FR about the press-ignored connections between Mohammed Atta and Saddam, and between Atta and the 9/2001 anthrax attacks. Transcripts released yesterday of flight recordings of Atta, in the cockpit of the hijacked plane, have Atta saying the following: As reported by the AP: Chilling radio transmissions by the Sept. 11 hijackers from the planes they commandeered were played publicly for the first time Thursday, providing a vivid and horrifying window into the events that unfolded during the worst terrorism attack in U.S. history. "We have some planes. Just stay quiet and you'll be O.K....

<p>March 25, 2003 -- WASHINGTON - Captured thug Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has revealed that the al Qaeda terrorists who plotted the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks have as many as two-dozen more terror plans already in motion against U.S. and Israeli interests, it was reported yesterday.</p>

An al Qaeda operative with close ties to the suspected mastermind of the September 11, 2001, attacks has been captured in Iraq. US president George W Bush said Hassan Ghul was helping al Qaeda step up attacks by insurgents against soldiers in Iraq. He was captured last week. Al Qaeda members are believed to have entered Iraq after the war last year that toppled President Saddam Hussein. Mr Bush said Ghul "reported directly" to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is suspected of coordinating the September 11 attacks on the United States that killed about 3,000 people and who was captured in...

Florida's Jihad ConferenceBy Joe KaufmanFrontPageMagazine.com | December 17, 2003 During the holiday season this year, an Islam for Humanity conference will be held near Disney World on the campus of the Universal Heritage Foundation, a 31-acre Islamic propagation center located in Kissimmee, Florida. The three day conference will commence on December 19, 2003, which “coincidentally” marks the beginning of Hanukkah. The timing is not to be confused with the objective -- highlighting peace and brotherhood will not be the conference's priorities in marking the holiday season. Originally listed as “Specially Invited Guests” were ex-Presidential candidate and Green Party leader, Ralph Nader, and Shaikh Abdur-Rahman Al-Sudais, the chief...

A NEWSWEEK article by investigative reporters Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball about the memo linking Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein dismisses a recent WEEKLY STANDARD report as "hype" and concludes, the "tangled tale of the memo suggests that the case of whether there has been Iraqi-al Qaeda complicity is far from closed." While it's refreshing to see the establishment media pick up the story, the Newsweek article is less than authoritative. The authors write: "The Pentagon memo pointedly omits any reference to the interrogations of a host of other high-level al Qaeda and Iraqi detainees--including such notables as Khalid...

The Memo and the Link Between Saddam and OsamaBy Lowell PonteFrontPageMagazine.com | November 17, 2003 "OSAMA BIN LADEN AND SADDAM HUSSEIN had an operational relationship from the early 1990s to 2003,” reports the November 24 issue of The Weekly Standard, “that involved training in explosives and weapons of mass destruction, logistical support for terrorist attacks, al Qaeda training camps and safe haven in Iraq, and Iraqi financial support for al Qaeda – perhaps even for Mohamed Atta – according to a top secret U.S. Government memorandum….” This 16-page memo, dated last October 27, was sent from Undersecretary of Defense...

Just days after the Oklahoma City bombing, the INS deported Osama bin Laden's brother-in-law Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, even though the FBI had evidence that linked the Saudi businessman to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the 1995 Bojinka plot and Oklahoma City. Not only was Khalifa deported to Jordan, where he was subsequently freed, but the U.S. government let him leave with potentially incriminating evidence and cleared his record of terrorism charges. Evidence in the FBI's possession at the time potentially implicated the Saudi businessman in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the airliner bombing plot and the Oklahoma City...

Lair of Morocco bombers found Alastair Macdonald, Reuters Tuesday May 20, 2003 The Guardian The Moroccan police arrested a chemistry graduate yesterday after finding a suspected suicide bombers' lair in Casablanca, and the Saudi authorities detained a gunman outside the US consulate in Dharan. The news came as a senior American official conceded that there was no end in sight to the war on terror. Experts say last week's suicide attacks are evidence that al-Qaida is regrouping. One said that it had replaced its captured military chief, the alleged planner of 9/11 Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Egypt, an Arab ally which...

<p>Captured this week in Pakistan, a nephew of a reputed al Qaeda mastermind may know the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden, sources said Thursday.</p> <p>The suspect, Ali Abed al Aziz, is a nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the September 11 terrorist attacks, and a cousin of Ramzi Youssef, who was convicted in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, the sources said.</p>

Under a clear night sky a convoy of four-wheel-drive pick-ups snaked along the slopes  past the mountain tribesmen. Over the years, they had grown used to the dust and noise from the many vehicles that supplied the complex maze of hilltop military camps.Then the sky exploded.From within the convoy orders were being yelled over the sound of the blasts higher up the hill. A man called Salem Ali was in charge. He ordered the drivers to move on, and they sped away. A few minutes later a second convoy raced by and was gone.It was the night of August 20...