Suspected Al-Qaida operative Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a Pakistani, has admitted masterminding the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States that killed nearly 3,000 people.

“I was responsible for the 9/11 operation, from A to Z,’’ Mohammed, believed to be number three in Qaida hierarchy, said through an interpreter, according to the transcript of the hearing at the US military prison camp in Guantanamo Bay of Cuba on Saturday.

The Pentagon released the transcript on Wednesday.

“I was the operational director for Sheikh Usama (Osama) bin Laden for the organising, planning, follow-up, and execution of the 9/11 operation,” he said through his representative, a member of the US military.

He also claimed that he was tortured by the CIA after his capture in 2003, but said he was under no duress to make the statement last week.

Mohammed expressed remorse for the death of children in the September 11 attacks but said the victims were "the language of war."

“I’m not happy that 3,000 (have) been killed in America,” he said.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, hijacked airliners were crashed into the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon in Virginia and into a field in Pennsylvania. A total of 2,972 persons were killed. “I don’t like to kill people. I feel very sorry they been killed kids in 9/11,” he said in broken English.

The administrative trial was held to determine whether Mohammed could be designated as an “enemy combatant,” and then held indefinitely and prosecuted by a military tribunal. Mohammed was arrested in Pakistan in March 2003 and handed over to the United States.

He accused the US of “deceiving” the public by using labels like “enemy combatant” and “terrorists,” and added “the other side” was calling the US “oppressors.”

Mohammed said he was not trying to make himself out to be a hero, but an enemy of America and drew a comparison between Osama bin Laden and George Washington. During the Revolutionary War, he said, the British would have considered Washington an “enemy combatant.”

Mohammed submitted a two-part personal statement with 38 terrorism-related admissions. Among these were responsibility for a 1993 attack on New York’s World Trade Center, the bombing of a nightclub in Bali, Indonesia, that killed 192 persons; and that he planned the 2001 attempted shoe bombing by Richard Reid of American Airlines Flight 63 from Paris.

He said he was responsible for training, surveying and financing a “second wave” of attacks on four US skyscrapers after September 11, 2001. These were the Library Tower in Los Angeles, the Sears Tower in Chicago, the Plaza Bank in Seattle and the Empire State Building in New York City.

Mohammed said he was responsible for “surveying and financing” plots to assassinate several American presidents, including President Jimmy Carter, and operations to destroy Heathrow Airport in England and Big Ben.

He said he was “responsible for planning, surveying, and financing for the destruction” of US and Israeli embassies in Asia and Australia, including the Israeli embassy in India. None of these plots was executed.

He started his statement by pledging his allegiance to Bin Laden and concluded with an admission to trying to destroy an American oil company in Indonesia owned by former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Mohammed refused to take an oath as part of the tribunal saying only that he was not lying and that his religious beliefs prevented him taking the oath and thereby accepting American law and its Constitution.

According to the transcript, Mohammed confessed to “managing and following up on the Cell for the Production of Biological Weapons, such as anthrax and others, and following up on Dirty Bomb Operations on American soil.”

He also said he “shared responsibility for the assassination attempt against Pope John Paul II while he was visiting the Philippines.”

His tribunal was one of three for the 14 high-value detainees who were transferred Sept. 6 to Guantanamo Bay from CIA custody.

On March 9, tribunals were held for Abu Faraj al-Libi, an alleged senior member of Al-Qaida, and Ramzi bin al-Shibh, who is said to have helped Mohammed plan the September 11 attacks.

Bin al-shibh, a Yemeni, is suspected of assisting Mohammed with the September 11, 2001, plan of attack.

He is also linked to a foiled plot to crash aircraft into London’s Heathrow Airport. According to the Pentagon he did not “cooperate” in his hearing.

Al-Libi, a Libyan, reportedly masterminded two bombings in Pakistan in December 2003 that targeted President Pervez Musharraf for his decision to support the US-led war on terror. He did not attend his hearing.