At the height of the July 2001 terrorism panic over an attack on the United States, no one in the State Department, immigration, the FBI or the intelligence community noticed.Īccording to the partially declassified Top Secret Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities before and after the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001: "Prior to September 11, the Intelligence Community had information linking Khalid Shaykh Mohammed (KSM). On June 23, 2001, KSM as Abdulrahman al Ghamdi-using the identical passport that he submitted to Australia-obtained a B-1/B-2 (tourist/business) visa to visit the United States.
And up to 9/11, he led and coached from afar the financial and logistical team that supported the U.S.
intelligence, KSM became the "teacher" of the Hamburg three (Mohammed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, and Ziad Jarrah) with regard to operational security and preparing their year and a half long preparations in the United States. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, even with the memorable moniker "KSM," which analysts used during the rendition attempt, never became any kind of household name terrorist. intelligence interrogations of Ramzi Yousef and others. The Abdulrahman alias seemed to have survived the Grand Jury inquiries and U.S. Mai/Getty Imagesīut he was also evidently forgotten thereafter. The Mastermind: Composite image of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed released by the FBI and President Bush during a press conference to announce the Most Wanted Terrorist list. Qatari officials evidently tipped off KSM and he escaped after that he was placed on U.S. Astoundingly, the FBI and CIA even attempted a rendition of KSM that year in Qatar, one that even personally involved FBI director Louis Freeh. But his identity as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was, and in 1996, based upon testimony of Philippines accomplices and a money transfer to Yousef, he was indicted for terrorist conspiracy by the Southern District of New York. In the Philippines he used the Abdulrahman alias and after Ramzi Yousef was captured in 1995, the identity seems not to be compromised. Moving back to Pakistan after the Soviet defeat two years later, he became mentor and organizer of a number of plots and attacks, connected to the 1993 World Trade Center attack and then to a plot in the Philippines (also with Ramzi Yousef, the main operative of the New York attack) that involved placing bombs aboard airliners and detonating them in midair.
He then participated in the jihad against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, where he met a young Osama bin Laden. KSM, a Pakistani national who grew up in Kuwait, came to the United States to study and graduated from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in 1986.
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