The 5 men accused of planning 9 / 11

Here are short profiles of the five men accused of planning the September 11, 2001 attacks. They are being detained at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

-- Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, 50: Born in Pakistan, raised in Kuwait and later educated in the United States, he has publicly said he was the principal planner of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

He is suspected in a string of other crimes, including the beheading of US reporter Daniel Pearl in 2002. Known as KSM, Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times between his capture in Pakistan in March 2003 and his transfer to Guantanamo in September 2006.

-- Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, 38: A Pakistani raised in Kuwait who is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's nephew and a cousin of jailed 1993 World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Youssef.

Also known as Ammar al-Baluchi, he is believed to have played an important role in helping facilitate 9/11 logistics by transferring funds to US-based operatives and helping hijackers travel from Pakistan to the United States. He was captured in April 2003 in Pakistan.
-- Ramzi Binalshibh, 43: A citizen of Yemen, he co-rented a flat in Hamburg, Germany, with suspected 9/11 ringleader Mohammed Atta. US officials say he tried but failed four times to obtain a US visa to become a pilot-hijacker.

Captured in Pakistan in September 2002, binalshibh is accused of serving as the primary link between the hijackers in the United States and Al-Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan and Pakistan during the eight months before the attacks.

-- Walid bin Attash, 37: Raised by Yemeni parents in Saudi Arabia, he is accused of helping coordinate the 2000 attack on the USS Cole destroyer that killed 17 US soldiers in Yemen.

Also known as Khallad, he lost his right leg during a 1997 battle in Afghanistan and supervised training at an Al-Qaeda camp there where he trained two of the September 11 hijackers along with other operatives. Allegedly chosen by Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden at the outset to become a 9/11 hijacker himself, he was captured in April 2003 along with Ali in Pakistan.

-- Mustapha al-Hawsawi, 47: A Saudi associate of bin Laden accused of holding the group's purse strings in its first years of existence, and of having arranged funding for the September 11 plot.

Both Hawsawi and Ramzi Binalshibh are said to have served as a communications link between Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the 9/11 hijackers. He was captured in Pakistan in March 2003, when special forces stormed the villa in which he was hiding along with Mohammed.
Source: AFP