US says Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has admitted to 9/11 terror attacks

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the man long alleged to have planned the September 11 attacks, has admitted responsibility for those strikes on the US and other al-Qa'ida operations, according to a transcript of a hearing taking place at Guantanamo Bay. There was no way to confirm the testimony as the Bush administration has banned reporters and lawyers from proceedings.

According to the transcript, Mr Mohammed told a hearing on Saturday that he was "responsible for the 9/11 operation, from A to Z". He also apparently claimed to have planned assassination attempts on the former presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, and on Pope John Paul II. He also said he was responsible for the 1993 attack on New York's World Trade Centre, the bombing of a nightclub in Bali, Indonesia, and an attempt to bring down two American airplanes using shoe bombs. In all, he said he was behind 29 planned attacks.

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Speaking through his representative, a member of the US military, he reportedly said: "I was the operational director for Sheikh Usama [Osama] Bin Laden for the organising, planning, follow-up, and execution of the 9/11 operation."

Mr Mohammed, a Pakistani national arrested by the Pakistani authorities in March 2003 and handed over to the United States, was among 14 so-called "high value" detainees transferred to Guantanamo Bay last September from a series of secret "black sites" operated by the US around the world. Last Friday the US military began holding what it calls Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRT), to assess whether the prisoners meet the criteria to be held. None of them has been formally charged with any crime.

The Pentagon said that, while it would not allow lawyers or the media to attend - a reversal of its policy at other CSRT, it would release an edited transcript of the proceeding. The transcript from Mr Mohammed's hearing ran to 26 pages, though some of his comments had been blacked out.

So far, the US military has completed hearings against six of the 14 men. It also released transcripts of hearings for Abu Faraj al-Libi and Ramzi Binalshibh.

Mr Binalshibh is suspected of helping Mr Mohammed with the September 11 attack plan and is also linked to a foiled plot to crash planes into Heathrow Airport. Mr al-Libi is a Libyan accused of masterminding two bombings 11 days apart in Pakistan in December 2003 that targeted President Pervez Musharraf.