Mohammed, Khalid Shaikh (1965–)

Born in Kuwait, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (aka Ashraf Refaat Nabith Henin; Khalid Adbul Wadood; Salem Ali; Fahd bin Abdallah bin Khalid) was the mastermind behind the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Before 9/11, the CIA did not have strong intelligence connecting him to al Qaeda, but after the attack he was regarded as al Qaeda's terrorist operations chief. At the time of his capture in 2003, he was plotting further attacks against the United States and Great Britain. In 2006 he was moved to the U.S. military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

Mohammed is a bomb expert who earned a degree in mechanical engineering from North Carolina A&T University in 1986 before going to Afghanistan to fight the Soviets. He is believed to have received most of his terrorist training in Afghanistan. He first came to international attention for his participation in Ramzi Yousef's foiled 1995 conspiracy called “Project Bojinka.” This deadly and wildly ambitious plot aimed to blow up nearly a dozen American airplanes with virtually undetectable bombs made of inexpensive digital watches and liquid explosives hidden in contact lens solution bottles. Mohammed was put on the FBI's list of most wanted terrorists for his role in the plot. The conspirators were based in Manila, the Philippines, and they targeted airliners flying to the United States from Southeast Asia.

In 1996, the United States indicted Mohammed for his involvement in Project Bojinka, accusing him of helping finance the conspiracy. Prosecutors referred to Project Bojinka as a conspiracy for “48 hours of terror in the sky.” Mohammed and other conspirators allegedly plotted to blow up 11 American commercial jets and, according to a New York Times report, crash a plane into CIA headquarters and kill the president of the United States with a deadly gas released into the air. Philippine officials found out about the plot on January 6, 1995, when a fire started in the Manila apartment where Yousef, who had fled to the Philippines in 1993, and Abdul Hakim Murad were building bombs. When Murad returned to the apartment, he was arrested. Yousef fled the country but was finally captured in Pakistan in February 1995 and extradited to the United States.

In addition to taking part in and financing Project Bojinka, Mohammed was also accused of participating in the December 1994 bombing of Philippine Airlines Flight 434 from the Philippines to Tokyo. The explosion killed a Japanese passenger and wounded 10 others, but the plane was able to make an emergency landing in Guam. Murad's confession indicates that Yousef boarded the plane in Manila carrying liquid nitroglycerin in a bottle normally used for contact lens solution. He mixed [Page 392]the bomb solution, containing only about 10 percent of the explosives planned for use in Project Bojinka, in the plane's restroom and taped it under his seat in the economy section. Yousef then left the plane at its first layover, in the southern city of Cebu. The bomb exploded during the second leg of the plane's journey to Tokyo. Project Bojinka called for similar actions carried out by five bombers spread across Asia, who would plant similar bombs on U.S. airplanes flying multi-stop routes.

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