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Alleged 9/11 Mastermind Wrote 6,000 Words to Obama | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama observe a moment of silence on the South Lawn of the White House to mark the 14th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, in Washington, Sept. 11, 2015. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)


Washington– A letter dated January 2015 to then-U.S. President Barack Obama by the self-proclaimed mastermind of September 11 attacks, Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, described the former president as “the head of the snake” and blamed the rise of terrorism on U.S. foreign policy.

The 6,000 words letter only reached Washington few days before Obama left office, after a military judge ordered Guantanamo prison to deliver it to the White House.

The Miami Herald obtained and published the letter on Wednesday, along with a 50-page manuscript Mohammed wrote about death.

“It was not we who started the war against you in 9/11. It was you and your dictators in our land,” he wrote.

“The Machiavellian Approach adopted by the West and East in its policies in general and by infidel countries in particular like the United States, France, Great Britain, and Russia has no morals or principles in times of war or in peace,” he added.

The letter revealed U.S.-Syrian cooperation in the war against terrorism, saying Washington handed over detainees to Bashar Assad’s regime.

“Was it light or dark when your government turned over the Syrian Canadian passenger Maher Arar to your previous ally Bashar Assad to be tortured?” he asked.

“Where is your moral outrage over the human rights violations and terrorist acts committed by your former ally, Bashar Assad’s government? Was it not your government that handed over Sheikh Abu Musab Al-Suri, Abu Khalid Al-Suri, and all the Syrian Mujahedeen who were captured in Afghanistan and Pakistan to him? Did you not watch the news reports and see the many cities and their residents turned to ashes, or were you busy playing golf or basketball? And after all this, your government and your people feel no compunction about charging us with destroying civilian objects and harming civilians,” Mohammed told Obama in his letter.

The alleged 9/11 mastermind wrote the letter “in the context of violence in Gaza and the occupied territories,” said Mohammed’s death-penalty defense attorney David Nevin.

Mohammed is a Kuwait-born Pakistani citizen, and is believed to be Al-Qaeda’s number three, after Osama bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri. He was detained in March 2003 and was kept in a CIA secret prison before being transferred to Guantanamo.

“I will never ask you, or your court for mercy,” he wrote. “Do what you wish to do, my freedom, my captivity and my death is a curse on all evil doers and tyrants,” he added.