Pakistani Sheikh and American rattle

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http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/806854.cms

CHIDANAND RAJGHATTA
TIMES NEWS NETWORK< SUNDAY, AUGUST 08, 2004 05:17:38 AM >

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When one thinks of 9/11 and the WTC twin towers coming down, one is
conditioned to think of Osama bin Laden as the mastermind behind the world's biggest terrorist attack. But it turns out now that while bin Laden (and his confrere Ayman al- Zawahiri) are mentors to the school of Islamic terrorism, the operational head and executioner of 9/11 is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM to US investigators), who was captured in Quetta, Pakistan, in March 2003.

While the real Sheikh (OBL) remains the much wanted terrorist figurehead, it is the other Sheikh Khalid Mohammed — who is now regarded as the biggest and most fascinating catch since the legendary Carlos.

In fact, while OBL is now credited with incubating a whole brood of terrorists (a sort of venture capitalist for terrorism), KSM has emerged as the top CEO of Terrorism Inc. One of KSM's cousin's is Ramzi Yousef, who tried to bring down the WTC in 1993. Another cousin or nephew is Abu Musaab Aruchi, arrested last week in Pakistan in connection with plans to attack more US financial institutions.

He is also closely linked to Omar Sheikh, the alleged ISI agent who was initially accused of killing Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. And of course, there is the small matter of his having motivated and trained the team of 19 hijackers who commandeered the four American planes.

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From all accounts, KSM and some of the 9/11 hijackers, far from being puritan Islamists, were fond of a good life and did not shirk from an occasional sortie to a bar or a casino.

By the early 1990s however, the cousins were all steamed up about US policy in the Middle East, and towards the Muslim world in general. So they repaired back to Baluchistan, where a network of family members and cousins helped him establish the first terrorist camps, under the benign eye of the Pakistani establishment.

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