- Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was linked to the alias Mukhtar before the 9/11 attacks
- CIA reports in 2001 noted Mukhtar recruiting terrorists for attacks on the US
- Mohammed was arrested in 2003 and has been held at Guantanamo Bay since 2006
Weeks before the September 11 attacks in 2001, the CIA's Counterterrorist Center (CTC) received an intelligence report which stated that the nickname "Mukhtar" was associated with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of deadly terrorist attacks.
Mohamed is accused of organising and directing the hijacking of planes that later crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Almost 3,000 people died in the attacks.
The name Mukhtar had already appeared multiple times in CIA reports that year, according to Newsweek. The intel claimed that Mukhtar was recruiting and training terrorists to attack the United States.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was indicted in January 1996 for his role in the 1993 World Trade Center attack. After an unsuccessful apprehension effort in Qatar, where he lived, Mohamed left the country in 1996. He started living in Afghanistan and Pakistan, providing media facilitation for al-Qaeda.
The CIA had identified another alias associated with Mohamed after the 1998 African Embassy attacks - Abdulrahman A.A. Al-Ghamdi. However, it reportedly failed to connect the dots, despite reports in June claiming that Mohamed was recruiting terrorists to travel to the US under the alias Mukhtar.
Apart from failing to connect Mohamed's name with his aliases, the spy agency also missed the fact that his cousins were connected to al-Qaeda, including Abd al-Samad, Hashim Abd al-Aziz, Abd al-Karim, Ramzi Yousef, and Ali Abdul Aziz Ali.
It was only after 9/11 that Mohamed was established as the same person as Mukhtar. It was found that he used to communicate with a telephone that was used by Yemeni terrorist Ramzi Bin al-Shibh. The same phone was used by Bin al-Shibh to talk to Zacarias Moussaoui, another person accused in the 9/11 attacks.
As for Mohamed, he was arrested by the US in 2003. Mohammed has earlier said he planned the "9/11 operation from A-to-Z", according to the BBC.
He has been held in Guantanamo Bay since September 2006.
On Friday, a military judge threw out a key confession made by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) almost 20 years ago.
Trial judge Michael Schrama said that Mohammed's statements to the FBI were not voluntary, according to CBS News. The court order has not been publicly released. The move comes as a big blow to the US government's long-delayed efforts to prosecute Mohammed. The ruling further delays the case against Mohammed, which is set to go to trial in 2028.
