Trial of 'mastermind' behind 9/11 attacks resumes: Who is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed?

People in the United States will remember and honour the victims who died on 11 September, 2001 as today marks 20 years since the 9/11 attacks. As Americans recall the horrifying day, there are hundreds of families who still wait for justice for their loved ones killed by Al Qaeda terrorists. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was the mastermind who allegedly planned the attacks. He and his co-conspirators are yet to be tried and convicted for the murder of nearly 3,000 people in the US. Mohammed is currently captive in a high-security cell at Cuba’s Guantanamo Bay on the US naval base. He had told interrogators initially that he was responsible for managing and planning the 9/11 plot. This month, the trial of Mohammed, the ‘principal architect’ of the 9/11 attacks, and four other conspirators resumed. All convicts will appear in the military tribunal for the first time since the year 2019, according to a report by The Print. However, the commission which investigated the 9/11 attacks named Mohammed as the ‘principal architect’. Ali Soufan, a former FBI agent who also actively investigated the attacks, called Mohammed a “wild-eyed killer”. Further in the official 9/11 Commission report, they described the 56-year-old terrorist as a bloodthirsty lieutenant of Osama bin Laden. They also stated that he is said to be the one who came up with the plan and proposed it to Al Qaeda. Not just that, Mohammed was actively involved in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. Reports suggest that he had transferred a large amount of money to one of the accused. During that time, Mohammed came under the scanner of the US authorities. In 2006, he was reportedly transferred to the US detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. Mohammed’s early life He is a citizen from Pakistan, who was raised in Kuwait. In the Arab country, he learned English and went on to study mechanical engineering at an American university. Later on, he worked for the Qatar government in the 1990s, following which he was inspired by his nephew, Ramzi Yousef, who undertook the bombing of New York’s World Trade Center in 1993.