WASHINGTON — The alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks has written a rambling, deeply religious manifesto that suggests Muslims should not use violence to spread Islam — a sharp departure from his earlier boasts of waging violent jihad against the U.S. and other non-Muslim nations.
The unclassified comments by Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who will soon turn 50 and who has spent the last decade in U.S. custody, come a year and a half into the pretrial phase of his military commission trial. The writings suggest that he either believes he can convert his U.S. audience or, as he often has done, is playing a mind game to attract publicity, feign mental illness or spare himself the death penalty if convicted in the 2001 attacks, the worst terrorist strikes in American history.
