A captured al-Qaida terrorist admitted to killing journalist Daniel Pearl. The Associated Press reported Thursday that suspected 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed, speaking at a hearing in a U.S. naval prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, took responsibility for the 2002 decapitation of the Jewish Wall Street Journal reporter. “I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew, Daniel Pearl, in the city of Karachi, Pakistan,” Mohammed said according to notes released Thursday by the Pentagon. Mohammed reportedly admitted to the planning of 31 terrorist plots, including the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center, and said that al-Qaida planned to crash planes into Eilat, Israel, using aircraft departing from Saudi Arabia. He also said the group planned to send terrorists to conduct surveillance on several strategic targets in the Jewish state.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
