US marks 20 years since 9/11, in shadow of Afghan war’s end
The U.S. marks the milestone anniversary Saturday under the pall of a pandemic and in the shadow of a frantic withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other accused held at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp will go on trial in 2021, almost two decades after the devastating Al-Qaeda attack, according to report on Friday.
A military judge at the US Navy’s Guantanamo, Cuba base set the date for the death-penalty trial for January 11, 2021, the New York Times reported.
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The date was included in a scheduling order for pre-trial activities by the military judge, Colonel Shane Cohen, the Times said.
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The five will be the first to go on trial in the military commissions established to handle the “War on Terror” detainees captured and sent to Guantanamo after September 11, 2001 attacks that left 2,976 people dead in New York, Pennsylvania and Washington.
KSM, Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin ’Attash, Ramzi Binalshibh, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi all face the death penalty for their alleged roles in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
Nearly 3,000 people were killed when hijackers crashed airliners into the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon, and a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
Two of the planes struck the World Trade Center, another hit the Pentagon and a fourth crashed into a field in Pennsylvania after passengers, having learned of the other flights, fought the hijackers.
Mohammed, a Pakistan native thought to be about 54, is a key figure in the trial: he has been accused of being the mastermind of the 9/11 plot.
He was captured in Pakistan in 2003. Turned over to the US Central Intelligence Agency, he underwent severe torture, including repeated waterboarding, as US officials sought to learn more about the plot and Al-Qaeda.
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