Other U.S. Targets: Library Tower in downtown L.A. (the tallest building west of the Mississippi, and tallest building in earthquake region) and Sears Tower , Chicago.
"The original plan was for a two-pronged attack with five targets on the east coast of America and five on the west coast," he told interrogators."We talked about hitting California as it was America's richest state and bin Laden had talked about economic targets."
Bin Laden, who like Khalid had studied engineering, vetoed simultaneous coast-to-coast attacks, arguing that "it would be too difficult to synchronise".
Khalid switched to two waves: hitting the east coast first and following up with a second attack. "Osama had said the second wave should focus on the west coast," he said.
On the attacks and what happened afterwards...
When the suicide planes struck on September 11, al-Qaeda seems to have been taken by surprise - both by the success of the attacks and by the US reaction.
"Afterwards we never got time to catch our breath, we were immediately on the run," Khalid said.
"Osama declared Tony Blair our principal enemy and London a target."
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed,
to US interrogators
He said the war on terrorism and the US bombing of Afghanistan completely disrupted their communications network. Operatives could no longer use satellite phones and had to rely on couriers, although they still used internet chat rooms.
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