Bin Ladin and his chief of operations, Abu Hafs al Masri, also known as
Mohammed Atef, occupied undisputed leadership positions atop al Qaeda's
organizational structure. Within this structure, al Qaeda's worldwide terrorist
operations relied heavily on the ideas and work of enterprising and strong-
willed field commanders who enjoyed considerable autonomy.To understand
how the organization actually worked and to introduce the origins of the 9/11
plot, we briefly examine three of these subordinate commanders: Khalid Sheikh
Mohammed (KSM), Riduan Isamuddin (better known as Hambali), and Abd
al Rahim al Nashiri. We will devote the most attention to Khalid Sheikh
Mohammed, the chief manager of the "planes operation."
No one exemplifies the model of the terrorist entrepreneur more clearly than
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the principal architect of the 9/11 attacks. KSM
followed a rather tortuous path to his eventual membership in al Qaeda.
ist safehouse, KSM applied his imagination, technical aptitude, and managerial
skills to hatching and planning an extraordinary array of terrorist schemes.
These ideas included conventional car bombing, political assassination, aircraft
bombing, hijacking, reservoir poisoning, and, ultimately, the use of aircraft as
missiles guided by suicide operatives.
and Pakistan. Raised in a religious family, KSM claims to have joined the Mus-
lim Brotherhood at age 16 and to have become enamored of violent jihad at
youth camps in the desert. In 1983, following his graduation from secondary