Khalid Says There Were Terrorist Plots Against Thai Night Clubs

[Gaybutton]

The following appears in the BANGKOK POST:

_____

 

Khalid Admits Bangkok Terrorist Plots

 

(Bankgokpost.com, Agencies)

 

September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed said that he had put into action twin plans to blow up Bangkok nightclubs and to take over and destroy an Israeli airliner at Don Muang airport in 2003.

 

Neither plan was achieved, he told the military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay prison, but he had active al-Qaeda agents in place and was near plans for the two terrorist actions when he and Jemaah Islamiyah counterpart Hambali were arrested.

 

At the military hearing in Guantanamo in which he took responsibility "from A to Z" for the 2001 terrorist attacks on America, the al-Qaeda idea man said:

 

"I was responsible for planning, surveying, and financing for the destruction of many night clubs frequented by American and British citizens on Thailand soil...

 

"I was responsible for surveying and financing for the destruction of an Israeli El-Al Airlines flight on Thailand soil departing from Bangkok Airport."

 

The transcript of his hearing before a US military court at the Cuban base was released yesterday in Washington and obtained by BangkokPost.com on the Internet.

 

The PDF can be obtained here:

 

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/transcript_ISN10024.pdf

 

or here:

 

http://tinyurl.com/2xea4q

 

Mohammad is known as a braggart. The US 9/11 Commission, established to report on the worst terrorist attack in US history, said he could be "inflating his own role".

 

But Mohammad's claims about Thailand fit precisely with previously known facts.

 

In June, 2003, police arrested a man alleged to be a member of al-Qaeda as he photographed the El Al counter at Bangkok International Airport at Don Muang. He was identified as Basir bin Lap alias Lillie, of Malaysia.

 

Under questioning, it was discovered that the arrested man also had put the El Al office in Bangkok under surveillance.

 

Lillie admitted to Thai police that he had also conducted surveillance on two Israeli-owned businesses in the Banglampoo tourist area known as Khao San Road.

 

Another close al-Qaeda associate Hambali, the JI chief of field operations arrested in Ayutthaya in August, 2003, admitted conducting surveillance of the Israeli embassy on Lang Suan Road, in preparation for a possible bomb attack.

 

In other testimony to the military tribunal, Mohammad said he beheaded Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, according to reports on Thursday.

 

"I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew, Daniel Pearl, in the city of Karachi, Pakistan," said a Pentagon transcript of Saturday's hearing, according to CNN. "For those who would like to confirm, there are pictures of me on the internet holding his head."

 

He said that he planned "new or second wave attacks" meant to follow September 11, which targeted sites in California, Chicago, Washington state and New York City, but were never carried out.

 

In addition to the two Thailand, the list of unconsumated attack targets includes the Strait of Hormuz, the Panama Canal, British landmarks including Big Ben and Heathrow Airport, the New York Stock Exchange, and US or Israeli embassies in Indonesia, Australia, Japan, India, Azerbaijan and the Philippines.

 

Mohammed revealed his role in the slaying of the journalist during a hearing at the US prison Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The transcript was released on Wednesday but the portion on Pearl was withheld until Thursday pending the notification of the reporter's family.

 

Pearl was abducted in January 2002 while on assignment in Pakistan. His body was later found and a videotape appeared showing his execution.

 

The 26-page document, which removed significant passages to protect what the Pentagon said was classified information, quotes a written statement in which Mohammed claims to have been behind major terrorist attacks since 1993 and more than 20 additional, unexecuted plots.

 

"I was responsible for the 1993 World Trade Center operation. I was responsible for the 9/11 operation from A to Z," he said in the statement, read by an unidentified personal representative assigned by the US Defence Department to assist him in the Combatant Status Review Tribunal hearing.

 

"I was responsible for the shoe bomber operation to down two American airplanes. ... I was responsible for the bombing of a nightclub in Bali, Indonesia."

 

Mohammed was captured in 2003. He was believed to have been held by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) at secret prisons around the world until being brought to Guantanamo in September.

 

The transcript was from a hearing held Saturday to determine if Mohammed is an enemy combatant, a definition created by the United States for prisoners in the so-called war on terrorism.

 

Guantanamo inmates were mostly captured in Afghanistan and Pakistan after the US-led invasion in late 2001 that toppled the Taliban regime in Kabul. Washington argues that the detainees cannot qualify as prisoners of war because they were not fighting for a legal, uniformed army, but that they need not be tried criminally because they were captured on the battlefield.

 

During the hearing Mohammed conceded that he fits the US definition of an enemy combatant, a category that did not exist before the September 11 attacks.

 

During one exchange with the tribunal's presiding office, Mohammed denied allegations that he told a reporter from the Arabic broadcaster al-Jazeera that he was head of the military committee of al-Qaeda, the terrorist network led by Osama bin Laden.

 

"I'm not denying that I'm an enemy combatant about this war," Mohammed said, according to the transcript.

 

The Pentagon says that the transcript is verbatim except for redacted sections.

 

The presiding officer, a US Navy captain whose name was redacted, acknowledged that Mohammed had made "a written statement regarding certain treatment that you claim to have received at the hands of agents of the United States government as you indicated from the time of your capture in 2003 up until before coming here to Guantamo in September 2006."

 

"To use your word, you claim torture," the captain said later.

 

Mohammed alleged that the torture came from "CIA peoples." He said it occurred "at the beginning when they transferred me..." but the rest of the statement was redacted by Pentagon officials.

 

Mohammed said in his lengthy statement of responsibility that he had made it at Guantanamo "without duress," and that he has sworn allegiance to Osama bin Laden "to conduct jihad." He admitted to being a "member of the al-Qaeda Council" and to have led the terrorist network's media operations, directed by bin Laden's highest lieutenant, Egyptian fugitive Ayman al-Zawahiri.

 

"I was the operational director for Sheikh Osama bin Laden for the organizing, planning, follow-up and execution of the 9/11 operation under the military commander Sheikh Abu Hafs al-Masri Subhi Abu Sittah," Mohammed said in the statement, which was read into the transcript by his representative.

 

He said that he trained the 9/11 hijackers.

 

"I hereby admit and affirm without duress that I was a responsible participant, principal planner, trainer, financier via the military council treasury, executor and or a personal participant" in attacks including the slaying of two US soldiers in Kuwait.

[Guest kenrfc]

I'm starting to get a funny feeling about this guy.

I'm almost expecting him admit to having killed Nicole Simpson, Lady Di, JonBenet Ramsy and JFK as well as being the Zodiac killer, blowing up the Hindenburg and sinking the Titanic.

Maybe he was also the father of Anna Nicole Smith's baby?

 

Perhaps the Guantanamo Persuasions work a little too well?