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| Baluchi, Khalid Sheikh Muhammed (KSM): Kuwaiti-born Pakistani, forcibly retired Operational Commander of al-Qaida |
Excerpted from article by Terry McDermott, Josh Meyer and Patrick J. McDonnell, LA Times, 2002.12.22 – While Saudi Usama ben Laden is considered the money-man, architect and figurehead of al-Qaida and Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahᵊri is the brains of al-Qaida, the top operational commander of al-Qaida, and commander behind the 9/11 attack, is believed to be Kuwaiti-born Pakistani Khalid Sheikh Muhammed (KSM) Baluchi (Baluchistan tribe). He was believed to be nearly captured in the recent raid and shoot-out at a Karachi apartment where his two young sons were taken into custody.
“Pakistani and American officials say catching Mohammed now could turn the tide in the war on terrorism. The senior Pakistani intelligence official said: ‘If you catch Khalid Shaikh at this point, you will break the backbone of the entire network.’ ”
“Much of the Middle East, following the devastating Arab loss to Israel in the 1967 war and the death of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser – failed champion of the drive for a secular and united Arab world – embarked on a gradual but inexorable turn toward religion, leading up to the Islamic Revolution in Iran. Analysts say it seemed that the secular path had been exposed as lacking, and religion was an alternative source of identity and regional esteem.”
The LA Times reporters looking into his past turned up an interesting fact: the college that Muhammed attended, along with about 50 other Muslims (of the 650 student body), is a small Baptist college in North Carolina, Chowan, where the Middle Easterners were known by locals as “Abbie Dahbies.”
The widely-acknowledged mentor of al-Qaida is a West Bank (‘Palestinian’) Arab: Ab’d-Allah (servant of Allah, corrupted to “Abdullah”) Azzam. “Among those who answered Azzam's call was a former student, Osama bin Laden. Azzam's intellectual fervor and Bin Laden's bank book combined in an organization that eventually became Al Qaeda.” (When Azzam was killed by a bomb in 1989, he was replaced by Usama bin Laden.) It’s difficult to say whether pious Azzam mentored secular Yasir Arafat in the terror trade or the reverse. In any case, “Azzam, more than any man, created the modern notion of a Muslim's duty to wage war against all comers in order to reestablish the reign of Islam on Earth.” Contrary to Pres. Bush, it IS a religious war. The longer the U.S. denies this the longer the American military will be diverted to the wrong targets and the worse the consequences will be.
Americans found him. Why didn’t they get him? “ ‘That D.C. meeting ... struck me as one of the great lessons in politics,’ said one person who attended the meeting. ‘Here was this opportunity to get this bad guy, and we didn't do it. The Qatar government had no interest in screwing up its fragile relationship with us. If we had gone in and nabbed this guy, or just cut his head off, the Qatari government would not have complained a bit.
“ ‘Everyone around the table for their own reasons refused to go after someone who fundamentally threatened American interests.... The FBI can't go anywhere overseas without the CIA providing the intel, the [Department of Defense] providing the logistics and military muscle in the event we have to shoot our way in. And none of that happened.’ ”
“While Bin Laden and the men previously identified as his main deputies – Zawahᵊri, Mohammed Atef and Abu Zubeida – spent the bulk of their time in Afghanistan and Pakistan consolidating and rebuilding their training camps, Mohammed traveled the globe, searching out allies and recruits, and assembling what now seems like an omnipresent worldwide network.” With the Afghan and Pakistan branches out of business, al-Qaida has turned into Khalid’s baby, probably with al-Zaqahiri’s brains. It’s unclear if bin Laden is still among the living, much less in charge of al-Qaida’s global operations.
A must-read article, available on the LA Times web site.
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