Al-Qaeda suspect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has claimed he organised the September 11th attacks and a string of others, according to the transcript of a US military hearing.
"I was responsible for the 9/11 Operation, from A to Z," Mohammed, speaking through a representative, said according to the transcript of the hearing on Saturday at the US military's Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed photographed during his arrest in March, 2003
Mohammed, a Pakistani national, also said he was responsible for a 1993 attack on New York's World Trade Center; a nightclub bombing in Bali, Indonesia; an attempt to down two American airplanes using shoe bombs; and other attacks.
During the hearing, held to determine whether he meets the US definition of an enemy combatant, Mohammed also seemed to indicate he had been mistreated in US custody.
Mohammed is among 14 prisoners identified by US authorities as "high-value" terrorism suspects and transferred to Guantanamo last year from secret CIA prisons abroad.
US officials have said Mohammed, arrested in Pakistan in March 2003 and handed over to US custody, was the mastermind of the September 11th, 2001, attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people, destroyed the World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon.
Mohammed also said he shared responsibility for three other plots, including one to assassinate Pope John Paul in the Philippines and another to kill Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.
The transcript of the closed hearing had been edited by US officials, a practice the Pentagon said was necessary to remove sensitive security information.
Mohammed appeared to express some regret at the deaths caused by the September 11th attacks but suggested they were justified as part of a war against the United States.
"I'm not happy that 3,000 had been killed in America. I feel sorry even," he said. "The language of any war in the world is killing. I mean the language of the war is victims."