Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind behind the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, released a 36-page manifesto stating that using violence to spread Islam is forbidden by the Holy Quran.
The declaration, Mohammed's first since he was first detained in Guantanamo Bay over seven years ago, is a far cry from his previous fierce and radical mentality, the Huffington Post reported.
Mohammed, who faces the death penalty for his involvement in coordinating 9/11, said in 2007 that he beheaded Daniel Pearl, an American journalist, with his "blessed right hand." Mohammed also once told a military commission, "it would have been the greatest religious duty to fight you over your infidelity."
In the manifesto, which apparently Mohammed typed up on a laptop in October 2013, he takes a more placid approach.
"The Holy Quran forbids us to use force as a means of converting," Mohammed said in the manifesto, obtained by the Huffington Post. Gaining "truth and reality never comes by muscles and force but by using the mind and wisdom."
Addressed to "the crusaders of the military commissions in Guantanamo," the manifesto's main goal is to convince his captors they will reach happiness if they willingly convert to Islam.
"Don't believe the media that the Mujahedeen believe that Islam spread in the past and will prevail in the future with the sword," Mohammed's said, according to the Huffington Post.
Though he is not promoting violence, Mohammed has by no means renounced his hatred for the West.
"Hundreds of American crusader soldier men and women join the U.S. Army, wear the latest military gear, eat the best food in Iraq and Afghanistan, play with their Playstations while their enemies, the poor Muslims, can't find their daily bread," Mohammed wrote, according to Channel 4 News.
The prisoner, held at Guantanamo Bay since 2006, even held his justification for the 9/11 terrorist attacks, where thousands of people lost their lives. The attack was "self-defense sanctioned by every constitution and international laws as the right of everyone whose land is occupied and whose people are attacked."
Mohammed has reportedly been tortured by the CIA and water boarded hundreds of times. He continues to deny the authority of the court system, but won the right to wear a camouflage field jacket and turban to court in 2012- clothing traditionally worn by fighters in the militia, the Huffington Post reported.
"I am very happy in my cell because my spirit is free even while my body is being held captive," wrote Mohammed, Channel 4 News reported. "I have never been neither sad nor distressed in my solitary confinement since 2003 because I have been here with the Only One True God."
© 2025 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
