Masterminds of Terror

The capture of the masterminds of the September 11th attacks, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Ramzi Binalshibh, grabbed headlines around the world. Both men were quickly trundled off to secret locations by the U.S. government, away from the press and the courts. Before they were caught, though, one reporter gained exclusive access to them, and in this book he tells the riveting story of his scoop, and what the terrorists revealed. When star Al-Jazeera reporter Yosri Fouda received an anonymous call summoning him to a secret interview in Pakistan with al-Qaeda, he knew he could be walking into a deadly trap, as Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl had done only months before. But nothing could have held him back. For the next 48 hours, he listened as two of the world's most wanted men, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the head of al-Qaeda's military committee and the alleged murderer of Pearl, and Ramzi Binalshibh, the link between Mohammed Atta and senior al-Qaeda leadership, proudly claimed responsibility for the 9/11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon. Over the course of their in-depth interview, they detailed exactly how, over a two-year period, the plot was conceived, planned, and executed. This account, based on that interview and hours of follow-up investigation, also provides portraits of both terrorists and analyzes al-Qaeda's attempts to justify its actions on what it calls "Holy Tuesday." This may be the closest we get to the full inside story of the September 11th plot. Book jacket.