New Khalid Shaikh Mohammed stunner: "My great-grandpa sank the Maine!" [VIDEO]

Posted by Joshua Holland at 6:37 AM on March 16, 2007.

(New York) Intelligence officials say that accused al Qaeda mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed has claimed indirect responsibility for yet another high-profile attack against American forces stationed abroad.

On Friday, after four years of solitary confinement in secret CIA-run prisons and a brisk morning of water-boarding, Mohammed admitted that his great-grandfather, Hussein abu Taba, orchestrated the 1898 bombing of the battleship U.S.S. Maine in Havana Harbor. That explosion, which killed 266 seamen, sparked the Spanish-American War.

Mohammed made waves earlier this week when he admitted to planning and/or personally executing dozens of terror attacks, including the 9/11 attacks, the "Shoe Bomber" plot, the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and the killing of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.

Officials say that the Qaeda operative's testimony vindicates the Bush administration's tactics in the "War on Terror." "When Khalid told us he had been the second gunman on the 'grassy knoll' in Dallas in 1963 - at age five! -- I knew we had a high-value prisoner, " said one of Mohammed's interrogators, speaking on background due to the sensitivity of the case. "But the battleship Maine ...well, that gets us into a whole other war against a completely different set of dusky religious fanatics."

Long a matter of controversy, the U.S.S. Maine sank on February 15, 1898, following a fiery explosion. The U.S. government claimed the ship was destroyed by a Spanish mine or via sabotage; others have argued that an accidental explosion in the ship's armory was the cause of the tragedy.

Mohammed claims that his great grandfather described to him in detail how he had smuggled an early IED -- a device that had been built in Persia -- onto the battleship and detonated it with a timer. The accused terror mastermind claims he had forgotten about the exchange until several years of gentle questioning by U.S. interrogators brought the exchange back to him.

Officials say such revelations aren't unusual. "We've found that the mind often represses difficult memories," said Major David L. Barry, an Army intelligence officer attached to the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. "And very few things cause those hidden memories to emerge quite like a few years of sensory deprivation followed by hooking up a prisoner's testicles to a 24-pound truck battery. It's remarkable what they recall!"

Evan Adds:

Thanks Joshua, you stole my post (and did it better than I'd planned to...)

Coupla things, mostly random:

First, the Bush Admin appears to have made "a marketing blunder" in the way it released the information. Think that doesn't matter? Think again. Time magazine isn't even buying (Yes, TIME magazine...):

there is a major flaw in that marketing strategy [of touting the administration's successful capture of a menace to Americans]. On the face of it, KSM, as he is known inside the government, comes across as boasting, at times mentally unstable. It's also clear he is making things up. I'm told by people involved in the investigation that KSM was present during Wall Street Journal correspondent Danny Pearl's execution but was in fact not the person who killed him. There exists videotape footage of the execution that minimizes KSM's role. And if KSM did indeed exaggerate his role in the Pearl murder, it raises the question of just what else he has exaggerated, or outright fabricated.

Second, a clip from Reservoir Dogs, which predates 9/11 [I think the names aren't accurate but the quotes are]:

Marvin Nash: I already told you I don't know anything about any fucking setup - you can torture me all you want.

Mr. Blonde: Torture you? That's a good idea. I like that.

Nice Guy Eddie: If you fucking beat this prick long enough, he'll tell you he started the goddamn Chicago fire, now that don't necessarily make it fucking so!

And finally, from Juan Cole:

A lot of commentators will note that Khalid Sheikh Muhammad has admitted that he planned out the 9/11 attacks. What they will miss is that he claimed the 1993 World Trade Center bombing as his idea, as well, and as an al-Qaeda operation. Remember that Paul Wolfowitz, following the frankly kookie Laurie Mylroie, blamed Saddam Hussein for the 1993 bombing. Wolfowitz was then the number 2 man in the Pentagon and enormously influential. His conviction that Bin Laden was "one little man" and that 9/11 had to have had a state sponsor (i.e. Iraq) helped drive us into the current quagmire. Wolfowitz was wrong, dead wrong. Has he ever admitted it? Should someone so wrong on so much really be heading the World Bank?

Tagged as: khalid shaikh mohammed

Joshua Holland is a staff writer at Alternet and a regular contributor to The Gadflyer.