According to official records, Sheikh Mohammed was born on April 14, 1965 (or March 1, 1964), in Balochistan, Pakistan. Some sources indicate his place of birth as Kuwait. His father was Sheikh Mohammed Ali Doustin Baluchi, a lay Deobandi preacher, who moved the family to Kuwait from Balochistan in the 1960s. His mother was Halema Mohammed. Mohammed is the uncle of Ramzi Yousef, who was convicted on terrorism charges for his part in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and Ammar Al Baluchi, who is accused of involvement in multiple terror plots.

According to U.S. federal documents, in 1982 he had heard Abdul Rasul Sayyaf’s speech in which a call for jihad against the Soviets was declared. At age 16, he joined the Muslim Brotherhood. After graduating from high school in 1983, Mohammad travelled to the United States and enrolled in Chowan University in Murfreesboro, North Carolina. He later transferred to North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University and received a Bachelor of Science (BS) in mechanical engineering in 1986.

In the following year, he went to Peshawar, Pakistan, where he and his brothers, including Zahed, joined the mujahideen forces engaged in the Soviet–Afghan War. He attended the Sada training camp run by Sheikh Abdallah Azzam, and after that he worked for the magazine al-Bunyan al-Marsous, produced by Sayyaf’s rebel group, the Islamic Union for the Liberation of Afghanistan. In 1992, he received a master’s degree in Islamic Culture and History through correspondence classes from Punjab University in Pakistan. By 1993, Mohammad had married and moved his family to Qatar, where he took a position as project engineer with the Qatari Ministry of Electricity and Water. He began to travel to different countries from that time onward.

Mohammed was in the Philippines in late 1994 and early 1995; he then identified as a Saudi or a Qatari plywood exporter and used the aliases “Abdul Majid” and “Salem Ali.”

Mohammed traveled to the Philippines in 1994 to work with his nephew Ramzi Yousef on the Bojinka plot, a Manila-based plot to destroy twelve commercial airliners flying routes between the United States, East Asia, and Southeast Asia. The 9/11 Commission Report says that “this marked the first time KSM took part in the actual planning of a terrorist operation.”

In December 1994, Yousef had engaged in a test of a bomb on Philippine Airlines Flight 434 using only about ten percent of the explosives that were to be used in each of the bombs to be planted on US airliners. The test resulted in the death of a Japanese national on board a flight from the Philippines to Japan. Mohammed conspired with Yousef in the plot until it was uncovered on January 6, 1995. Yousef was captured February 7 of that same year.

By the time the Bojinka plot was discovered, Mohammed had returned to Qatar and his job as a project engineer at the country’s Ministry of Electricity and Water. He traveled in 1995 to Sudan, Yemen, Malaysia, and Brazil to visit elements of the worldwide jihadist community, although no evidence connects him to specific terrorist actions in any of those locations. On his trip to Sudan, he attempted to meet with Osama Bin Laden, who was at the time living there, aided by Sudanese political leader Hassan al-Turabi. After the US asked the Qatari government to arrest Mohammed in January 1996, he fled to Afghanistan, where he renewed his alliance with Abdul Rasul Sayyaf. Later that year, he formed a working relationship with Bin Laden, who had settled there.

In early 1996 Mohammed returned to Afghanistan to avoid capture by U.S. authorities. In his flight from Qatar, he was sheltered by Sheikh Abdullah Al Thani, who was the Qatari Minister of Religious Affairs in 1996.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was indicted on terrorism charges in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York in January 1996 for his alleged involvement in Operation Bojinka, and was subsequently placed on the October 10, 2001, initial list of the FBI’s twenty-two Most Wanted Terrorists.

In 1997, Mohammed moved his family from Iran to Karachi, Pakistan. That year, he tried unsuccessfully to join mujahideen leader Ibn al-Khattab in Chechnya, another area of special interest to Mohammed. Unable to travel to Chechnya, he returned to Afghanistan. He ultimately accepted bin Laden’s invitation to move to Kandahar and join al-Qaeda as a full-fledged member. Eventually, he became leader of Al Qaeda’s media committee.

In late 1998 or early 1999, Bin Laden gave approval for Mohammed to proceed to organize the plot. Meetings in early 1999 took place with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Osama bin Laden, and his military chief Mohammed Atef. Bin Laden led the plot and provided financial support. He was also involved in selecting the participants, including choosing Mohamed Atta as the lead hijacker. Khalid Shekih provided operational support, such as selecting targets and helping arrange travel for the hijackers. Atef directed the actions of the hijackers.

In a 2002 interview with Al Jazeera journalist Yosri Fouda, Mohammed admitted that he and Ramzi bin al-Shibh were involved in the “Holy Tuesday operation”. (“Holy Tuesday operation” was the terrorists’ code name for the 9/11 attacks, and the attacks actually did take place on a Tuesday.) KSM, however, disputes this claim via his Personal Representative: “I never stated to the Al Jazeera reporter that I was the head of the al-Qaeda military committee.”

In April 2002 interview with Al Jazeera correspondent Yosri Fouda, KSM and Ramzi bin al-Shibh described the preparations for 9/11 attacks and said that they first thought of “striking at a couple of nuclear facilities” in the USA but then “it was eventually decided to leave out nuclear targets for now.”

On September 11, 2002, members of Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) claimed to have killed or captured Sheikh Mohammed during a raid in Karachi that resulted in bin al-Shibh’s capture. This Pakistani claim was false.

As an example of this the article discloses that although the George W. Bush administration made claims that the water-boarding (simulated drowning) of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed produced vital information that allowed them to break up a plot to attack the U.S. Bank Tower (formerly Library Tower and First Interstate Bank World Center) in Los Angeles in 2002, this has been proven to be untrue. In 2002 Sheikh Mohammed was busy evading capture in Pakistan. Likewise the claim by former George W Bush Attorney General Michael Mukasey and former CIA director of the National Clandestine Service, Jose Rodriguez, that the torture of Khalid Mohammed produced the most significant lead in finding Osama bin Laden, has also been shown to be false. According to U.S. Senator John McCain, “The trail to bin Laden did not begin with a disclosure from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was waterboarded 183 times … not only did the use of ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed not provide us with key leads on bin Laden’s courier, Abu Ahmed; it actually produced false and misleading information.”

Mohammed was captured in Rawalpindi, Pakistan (about 20 km southwest of Islamabad), on March 1, 2003, by the Pakistani ISI, possibly in a joint action with the CIA’s Special Activities Division paramilitary operatives and officers of the American Diplomatic Security Service. He has been in U.S. custody since that time.

During 2003, Mohammad was held at a secret CIA prison, or black site, in Poland, where the CIA waterboarded him 183 times. He was then transferred to another secret CIA prison in Romania.

A CIA document reveals that Jane Harman (D-CA) and Porter Goss (R-FL) of the House Intelligence Committee were briefed on July 13, 2004, by the CIA Deputy Director for Operations James Pavitt, General Counsel Scott Muller, and CIA Inspector General John L. Helgerson on the status of the interrogation process of Mohammed. By this date, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed had been subjected to 183 applications of waterboarding.

On October 12, 2004, Human Rights Watch reported that 11 suspects, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, had “disappeared” to a semi-secret prison in Jordan, and may have been tortured there under the direction of the CIA. At the time, Jordanian and American officials denied those allegations.

According to a CNN interview with intelligence expert Rohan Gunaratna, “Daniel Pearl was going in search of the al Qaeda network that was operational in Karachi, and it was at the instruction of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed that Daniel Pearl was killed.” On October 12, 2006, Time magazine reported that “KSM confessed under CIA interrogation that he personally committed the murder.” On March 15, 2007, the Pentagon stated that Mohammed had confessed to the murder. The statement quoted Mohammed as saying, “I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew, Daniel Pearl, in the city of Karachi, Pakistan. For those who would like to confirm, there are pictures of me on the Internet holding his head.” This confession was gained under torture, and Mohammed listed many other crimes at the same time.

In September 2006, the U.S. government announced it had moved Mohammed from a secret CIA prison (or black site) to the military custody at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.

In October 2006, Mohammed described his mistreatment and torture in detention, including the waterboarding, to a representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Mohammed said that he had provided a lot of false information, which he had supposed the interrogators wanted to hear, in order to stop the mistreatment. In the 2006 interview with the Red Cross, Mohammed claimed to have been waterboarded in five different sessions during the first month of interrogation in his third place of detention. While the Justice Department memos did not explain exactly what the numbers represented, a U.S. official with knowledge of the interrogation programs explained the 183 figure represented the number of times water was applied to the detainee’s face during the waterboarding sessions, rather than separate sessions.

Ali Khan, the father of Majid Khan, another one of the 14 “high-value detainees,” released an affidavit on April 16, 2006, that reported that interrogators subjected Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s children, aged 6 and 8 years old, to abusive interrogation.

On September 6, 2006, then-American President George W. Bush confirmed, for the first time, that the CIA had held “high-value detainees” for interrogation in secret prisons around the world. He also announced that fourteen senior captives, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, were being transferred from CIA custody, to military custody, at Guantanamo Bay detention camp and that these fourteen captives could now expect to face charges before Guantanamo military commissions.

“In 2006, his interrogation summaries were read aloud in the capital murder trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called 20th hijacker, and Moussaoui was spared the death penalty. Two years later, different Mohammed statements were read in a military commission trial, or tribunal, that led to the release from Guantanamo Bay of Osama bin Laden’s chauffeur, Salim Hamdan.”

In March 2007, after four years in captivity, including six months of detention and alleged torture at Guantanamo Bay, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed—as it was claimed by a Combatant Status Review Tribunal Hearing in Guantanamo Bay—confessed to masterminding the September 11 attacks, the Richard Reid shoe bombing attempt to blow up an airliner over the Atlantic Ocean, the Bali nightclub bombing in Indonesia, the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and various foiled attacks. “I was responsible for the 9/11 operation from A to Z,” Khalid Sheikh Mohammed said in a statement read Saturday during a Combatant Status Review Tribunal at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. His confession was read by a member of the U.S. military who is serving as his “personal representative.”

In March 2007, Mohammed testified before a closed-door hearing in Guantánamo Bay. According to transcripts of the hearing released by the Pentagon, he said, “I was responsible for the 9/11 operation, from A to Z.” The transcripts also show him confessing to:

On March 15, 2007, BBC News reported that “Transcripts of his testimony were translated from Arabic and edited by the U.S. Department of Defense to remove sensitive intelligence material before release. It appeared, from a judge’s question, that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed had made allegations of torture in US custody.” In the Defense Department transcript, Mohammed said his statement was not made under duress but Mohammed and human rights advocates have alleged that he was tortured. CIA officials have previously told ABC News that “Mohammed lasted the longest under waterboarding, two and a half minutes, before beginning to talk.” Legal experts say this could taint all his statements. Forensic psychiatrist Michael Welner, M.D., an expert in false confessions, observed from the testimony transcript that his concerns about his family may have been far more influential in soliciting Mohammed’s cooperation than any earlier reported mistreatment.

The Department of Defense announced on August 9, 2007 that all fourteen of the “high-value detainees” who had been transferred to Guantanamo from the CIA’s black sites, had been officially classified as “enemy combatants”. Although judges Peter Brownback and Keith J. Allred had ruled two months earlier that only “illegal enemy combatants” could face military commissions, the Department of Defense waived the qualifier and said that all fourteen men could now face charges before Guantanamo military commissions.

On March 19, 2007, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh’s lawyers cited Mohammed’s confession in defense of their client.

On February 5, 2008, the CIA Director Michael Hayden told a Senate committee that his agents had used waterboarding on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. A 2005 U.S. Justice Department memo released in April 2009 stated that Mohammed had undergone waterboarding 183 times in March 2003.

In June 2008, a New York Times article, citing unnamed CIA officers, claimed that Mohammed had been held in a black site or secret facility in Poland near Szymany Airport, about 100 miles north of Warsaw. There he was interrogated under waterboarding before he began to “cooperate.”

On February 11, 2008, the United States Department of Defense charged Mohammed, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi, Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali and Walid Bin Attash for the September 11, 2001 attacks under the military commission system, as established under the Military Commissions Act of 2006. They have reportedly been charged with the murder of almost 3000 people, terrorism and providing material support for terrorism and plane hijacking; as well as attacking civilian objects, intentionally causing serious bodily injury and destruction of property in violation of the law of war. The charges against them list 169 overt acts allegedly committed by the defendants in furtherance of the September 11 events.

The United States 9/11 Commission Report notes that, “By his own account, KSM’s animus toward the United States stemmed not from his experiences there as a student, but rather from his violent disagreement with U.S. foreign policy favoring Israel.” However, on August 29, 2009, The Washington Post reported from US intelligence sources that Mohammed’s time in the U.S. contributed to his radicalisation.

The news agency Adnkronos reported in 2009 that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, under an assumed name, had traveled to Bosnia in 1995, as a humanitarian aid worker for Egyptian Relief. Adnkronos quoted the Sarajevo paper Daily Fokus, reporting that local intelligence officials confirmed Mohammed had obtained Bosnian citizenship in November 1995. Those officials told Daily Fokus that Egyptian Relief was a front for the Muslim Brotherhood.

In 2009, Mohammed described his actions and motivations in a document publicly released and known as The Islamic Response to the Government’s Nine Accusations.

In 2009, the French government decided to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in absentia on terrorism charges with respect to the Ghriba synagogue bombing on the Tunisian island of Djerba in 2002, which killed 14 German tourists, five Tunisians and two French nationals. They intended to charge him along with the captured German national Christian Ganczarski and Tunisian Walid Nawar. French judges later decided to separate Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s case from those of Ganczarski and Nawar and try him separately at a later date.

In Boumediene v. Bush (2008), the United States Supreme Court ruled that detainees had the right of access to US federal courts to petition under habeas corpus to challenge their detentions, and that the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 and the Military Commissions Act of 2006 were flawed. A revised Military Commissions Act was passed by Congress in 2009 to address court concerns.

On September 9, 2009, photographs of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Ammar al Baluchi were published on the Internet and widely in US and international media. Camp authorities have strict controls over the taking and distribution of images of the Guantanamo captives. Journalists and VIPs visiting Guantanamo are not allowed to take any pictures that show the captives’ faces. Journalists may see “high value” captives such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed only when they are in the court room, where cameras are not allowed. But, on September 9, 2009, independent counter-terrorism researchers found new images of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his nephew Ammar al Baluchi on “jihadist websites”. According to Carol Rosenberg, writing in The Miami Herald: “The pictures were taken in July, said International Committee of the Red Cross spokesman Bernard Barrett, under an agreement with prison camp staff that lets Red Cross delegates photograph detainees and send photos to family members.”

According to an investigative report published in January 2011 by Georgetown University, the Federal Bureau of Investigation used vein matching to determine that the perpetrator in the video of the killing of Pearl was most likely Mohammed, notably through identifying a “bulging vein” running across his hand. Concerned that the confession obtained through waterboarding would not hold up in court, federal officials used this forensic evidence to bolster their case.

In April 2011, the British newspaper, The Telegraph said it received leaked documents regarding the Guantanamo Bay interrogations of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The documents cited Mohammed as saying that, if Osama Bin Laden is captured or killed by the Coalition of the Willing, an al-Qaeda sleeper cell would detonate a “weapon of mass destruction” in a “secret location” in Europe, and promised it would be “a nuclear hellstorm”.

In November 2014, a Turkish manufacturer of over the counter hair removal cream was found to be using an image of a disheveled Mohammed in ads for their product.

In January 2014, a 36-page “nonviolence manifesto” written by KSM was declassified and released by the US government. The title is “Khalid Sheikh Mohammad’s Statement to the Crusaders of the Military Commissions in Guantanamo”. The document outlines 3 parts, but appears to be just the first section, describing “the path to happiness”. The subject writes to his captors and appears interested in converting his wider audience to Islam. The author has utilized cultural criticisms, theological, and historical references to clarify a rationale for Westerners to follow Islam. The notes contain eight books with three Western authors and penciled initials with the date October 31, 2013.

Mohammed, in a letter submitted to the court on July 26, 2019, communicated the willingness to help the 9/11 attack victims and their families in their lawsuit against Saudi Arabia. The mastermind is said to have demanded the elimination of his death sentence in the exchange of cooperation.