July 2001 Communication between KSM and Bin al-Shibh Intercepted, Later Obtained by Moussaoui Prosecutors

A July 2001 telephone call between alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM) and 9/11 coordinator Ramzi bin al-Shibh was intercepted, apparently by the NSA. Prosecutors and FBI agents working on the Zacarias Moussaoui case later obtained detailed information about the call, and shared it with the 9/11 Commission.

Abu Zubaida Was Not Waterboarded 83 Times

There is a story going round the press and the internet that militant training camp facilitator Abu Zubaida was waterboarded 83 times by the CIA in August 2002. However, this story is not true, as I will show.

9/11 Commission Documents about KSM (updated 17 March 2010)

This post lists documents related to the 9/11 Commission’s investigation of alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM). The documents have been posted at the 9/11 Document Archive at Scribd. I am reading through them gradually and highlighting interesting information. This post will be updated continuously.

One Lie from KSM’s Confessions

One feeling I have always had from reading KSM’s confessions, or rather the information that has slipped through to the media from them, is not only that he was lying, but that he was lying in specific ways. First, he seems to me to have been lying for the usual reason of telling his torturers what he thought they wanted to hear to get them to stop torturing him. Second, he seems to have been lying for the specific purpose of benefiting his associates.

The Real Reason Only Five Detainees Are Coming to New York?

US Attorney General Eric Holder recently announced that five detainees would be moved from Guantanamo Bay to New York, where they would stand trial for carrying out the 9/11 attacks. However, five other detainees will continue to be tried before military commissions, which have lower standards of evidence. The five detainees coming to New York have previously indicated they intend to plead guilty, although the five to be tried before military commissions have not.

Atta-Shukrijumah Link Another Blow to KSM’s Credibility

Today saw the eighth anniversary of 9/11 and, as usual, there were a slew of articles. The most interesting was this one on ABC, which probably requires three posts to digest fully. I have previously expressed extreme scepticism at some of the statements reportedly made by alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM) under waterboarding and other torture, and this report further confirms my suspicions he told his interrogators a pack of lies, which they and then the 9/11 Commission believed to an unhealthy extent.

The Usefulness of KSM’s Interrogations: Very Low

Emptywheel has a post analysing the effectiveness of detainee interrogations based on references in the 9/11 Commission report to interrogations of Abu Zubaida. She says she plans to extend this method to KSM’s interrogations cited in the commission’s report, and gives an example of one of his alleged statements as possible evidence of him giving up new information to interrogators. However, in the example she uses the US already knew most (at least) of what the commission attributes to him.

Alleged 9/11 Mastermind Travelled to South Africa in Run-up to Attacks

A newly released FBI document shows that alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, usually referred to as KSM (timeline), travelled to South Africa in the run-up to the 9/11 attacks. There he received a wire transfer from Saeed Alghamdi, one of the presumed hijackers of Flight 93 on September 11.

Almihdhar and Alhazmi Were Already Part of 9/11 Plot when They Obtained US Visas

There is a story put about by the 9/11 Commission that when 9/11 hijackers Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar obtained US visas in April 1999 , they had not yet been selected for the 9/11 operation. Although this is a fourth-hand account of information allegedly tortured out of a detainee who was demonstrably lying some, if not most of the time, and is contradicted by other evidence, it has gained some currency. I was most displeased to see the claim repeated in James Bamford’s new book The Shadow Factory , which motivated me to write this up.