Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, purportedly the highest-ranking al-Qaeda operative in US custody, has now confessed to being "responsible for the 9-11 operation from A to Z," as well as being the mastermind of the 1993 WTC attack, Richard Reid's attempted shoe-bombing, the Daniel Pearl slaying, and a slew of planned attacks on such targets as Chicago's Sears Building—although given the notorious interrogation methods used at Guantanamo Bay, we are skeptical as to the veracity of these allegations. However, his statement sheds much light on al-Qaeda's worldview—and its appeal in the Third World. From the International Herald Tribune, March 14, emphasis and link added:

Following are excerpts from the testimony of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed on March 10 in a Combatant Status Review Tribunal hearing provided by the United States government. Parts were edited out. Mohammed's statements, parts in English and parts in Arabic through a translator, came in response to instructions that he could say "whatever you'd like to say so long as it's relevant":

Many Muslims, that Al Qaeda or Taliban they are doing. They have been oppressed by America. This is the feeling of the prophet. So when we say we are enemy combatant, that right. We are. But I am asking you again to be fair with many detainees which are not enemy combatant. Because many of them have been unjustly arrested. Many, not one or two or three. Cause the definition you which wrote even from my view it is not fair....

Because war, for sure, there will be victims. When I said I'm not happy that 3,000 been killed in America. I feel sorry even. I don't like to kill children and the kids. Never Islam are, give me green light to kill peoples. Killing, as in the Christianity, Jews, and Islam, are prohibited. But there are exception of rule when you are killing people in Iraq. You said we have to do it. We don't like Saddam. But this the way to deal with Saddam. Same thing you are saying. Same language you use, I use. When you are invading two-thirds of Mexican, you call your war manifest destiny. It up to you to call it what you want. But other side are calling you oppressors. If now George Washington. If now we were living in the Revolutionary War and George Washington he being arrested through Britain. For sure he, they would consider him enemy combatant. But American they consider him as hero.

See our last post on al-Qaeda.