September 21, 2003: Associated Press Reports Details from KSM Interrogations

An Associated Press (AP) report provides details of what alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM) has apparently told his CIA interrogators. The article, based on “interrogation reports” reviewed by the AP, makes the following claims:
KSM worked on the Bojinka plot in 1994 and 1995 in the Philippines with Ramzi Yousef, Abdul Hakim Murad, and Wali Khan Amin Shah;
After Yousef and Murad were captured (see January 6, 1995 and February 7, 1995), KSM began to devise a new plot that focused on hijackings on US soil;
KSM first pitched the 9/11 plot to Osama bin Laden in 1996. He wanted bin Laden “to give him money and operatives so he could hijack 10 planes in the United States and fly them into targets”;
After bin Laden agreed in principle, the original plan, which called for hijacking five commercial jets on each US coast, was modified several times. Some versions even had the planes being blown up in mid-air, possibly with the aid of shoe bombs. Bin Laden scrapped various parts of the plan, including attacks on both coasts and hijacking or bombing some planes in East Asia as well;
The original four al-Qaeda operatives bin Laden offered KSM for the plot were eventual hijackers Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar, as well as Khallad bin Attash and Abu Bara al-Yemeni. “All four operatives only knew that they had volunteered for a martyrdom operation involving planes,” one interrogation report apparently states;
The first major change to the plans occurred in 1999 when the two Yemeni operatives could not get US visas (see April 3, 1999). [Associated Press, 9/21/2003] (According to the 9/11 Commission Report, KSM actually says Abu Bara al-Yemeni never applied for a US visa); [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 492]
Bin Laden then offered KSM additional operatives, including a member of his personal security detail;
At that time the plot was to hijack a small number of planes in the United States and East Asia and either have them explode or crash into targets simultaneously;
In 1999, the four original operatives picked for the plot traveled to Afghanistan to train at one of bin Laden’s camps, where they received specialized commando training (see Late 1999);
Al-Qaeda’s Malaysia summit (see January 5-8, 2000) was, according to the report, a “key event in the plot,” although it does not say whether KSM was physically present. On the other hand, it confirms the presence of Jemaah Islamiyah leader Hambali;
KSM communicated with Alhazmi and Almihdhar while they were in the US using Internet chat software;
KSM has never heard of Omar al-Bayoumi, an apparent Saudi intelligence agent who provided some assistance to future 9/11 hijackers Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi when they arrived in California. Neither did he arrange for anyone else in the US to assist Almihdhar and Alhazmi when they arrived in California. Despite this, Almihdhar and Alhazmi soon made contact with a network of people linked to Saudi intelligence services (see January 15-February 2000 and June 23-July 2001);
Bin Laden canceled the East Asian portion of the attacks in the spring of 2000, because, according to a quote from KSM contained in a report, “it would be too difficult to synchronize” attacks in the United States and Asia;
Around that time, KSM reached out to Jemaah Islamiyah, an al-Qaeda affiliate in Southeast Asia. He began “recruiting JI operatives for inclusion in the hijacking plot as part of his second wave of hijacking attacks to occur after Sept. 11,” one summary reportedly says;
Zacarias Moussaoui also went to Malaysia in the run-up to 9/11 (see September-October 2000);
In its final stages, the plan called for as many as 22 terrorists and four planes in a first wave, followed by a second wave of suicide hijackings that were to be aided possibly by al-Qaeda allies in Southeast Asia;
The hijacking teams were originally made up of members from different countries where al-Qaeda had recruited, but in the final stages bin Laden chose instead to use a large group of young Saudi men to populate the hijacking teams;
KSM told interrogators about other terror plots that were in various stages of planning or had been temporarily disrupted when he was captured, including one planned for Singapore (see June 2001 and November 15-Late December 2001);
KSM and al-Qaeda were still actively looking to strike US, Western, and Israeli targets across the world as of this year. [Associated Press, 9/21/2003]
These statements attributed to KSM are similar to later statements attributed to him by the 9/11 Commission Report. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004] The Associated Press article cautions that US authorities are still investigating what KSM is telling them, “to eliminate deliberate misinformation.” [Associated Press, 9/21/2003] KSM made some or all these statements under torture, leading some to question their reliability (see Shortly After February 29 or March 1, 2003, After March 7, 2003, June 16, 2004, and August 6, 2007).