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Mastermind: The Many Faces of the 9/11 Architect, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed
The bestselling author of Shadow War and Losing Bin Laden exposes the sinister Al Qaeda mastermind behind 9/11.
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the architect of the 9/11 attacks, has carried out many of the biggest terrorist plots of the past twenty years, including the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the Millennium Plots, and the beheading of Daniel Pearl. As the world awaits his trial, bestselling author and investigative journalist Richard Miniter brings to life his shocking true story.
Based on more than one hundred interviews with government officials, generals, diplomats and spies-from the United States, Europe, the Arab world, and Afghanistan-and on the ground reporting from Morocco, Egypt, Israel, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Guantánamo Bay, Miniter reveals never-before-reported Al Qaeda plots and surprising new details about the 9/11 attacks.
He also shows how Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was radicalized in America and takes us inside terrorist safe houses, CIA war rooms, and the cages of Guantánamo Bay.
While thoroughly reported and strongly sourced, this is a pounding narrative that reads like a thriller.
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the architect of the 9/11 attacks, has carried out many of the biggest terrorist plots of the past twenty years, including the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the Millennium Plots, and the beheading of Daniel Pearl. As the world awaits his trial, bestselling author and investigative journalist Richard Miniter brings to life his shocking true story.
Based on more than one hundred interviews with government officials, generals, diplomats and spies-from the United States, Europe, the Arab world, and Afghanistan-and on the ground reporting from Morocco, Egypt, Israel, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Guantánamo Bay, Miniter reveals never-before-reported Al Qaeda plots and surprising new details about the 9/11 attacks.
He also shows how Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was radicalized in America and takes us inside terrorist safe houses, CIA war rooms, and the cages of Guantánamo Bay.
While thoroughly reported and strongly sourced, this is a pounding narrative that reads like a thriller.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2011
15 people are currently reading
69 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
February 20, 2019
This book, though chock-full of interesting facts about 9/11's mastermind, is amateurishly written. The book is divided into five parts: narrating KSM's early life, detailing the beginnings of his terrorism career, tracing the protagonist's (antagonist?) plot for 9/11, following the hunt for KSM, and discussing the capture and interrogation process. The author competently describes the ways in which KSM's past might have shaped the terrorist he became. His difficult childhood, his membership in the Muslim Brotherhood, and his unhappy education in a U.S. technical college converged to produce a man who acquired the persistence of a zealot and the knowledge to make improvised bombs.
The author must have faced nearly insurmountable obstacles in gathering material for the book, and for this effort he must be lauded. However, the last 80 or so pages of the work degenerate into a conservative tirade about the pitfalls of liberal values in hampering KSM's prosecution. While Miniter makes a convincing case that terrorists might not be as deserving of civil liberties as progressives so readily argue, his penchant for sensationalising an otherwise perfectly healthy debate in a democratic society leaves us wondering if the author is interested in revenge rather than justice. The book is dripping with the author's ideological bias, and Miniter, who makes a living as a journalist, is not ashamed of it.
Ultimately, this book is informative but is otherwise of little intellectual or academic value. What would otherwise have been a valuable work about the architect of September 11 became instead little more than an extended rant. This says more about the author himself than the subject of his study.
The author must have faced nearly insurmountable obstacles in gathering material for the book, and for this effort he must be lauded. However, the last 80 or so pages of the work degenerate into a conservative tirade about the pitfalls of liberal values in hampering KSM's prosecution. While Miniter makes a convincing case that terrorists might not be as deserving of civil liberties as progressives so readily argue, his penchant for sensationalising an otherwise perfectly healthy debate in a democratic society leaves us wondering if the author is interested in revenge rather than justice. The book is dripping with the author's ideological bias, and Miniter, who makes a living as a journalist, is not ashamed of it.
Ultimately, this book is informative but is otherwise of little intellectual or academic value. What would otherwise have been a valuable work about the architect of September 11 became instead little more than an extended rant. This says more about the author himself than the subject of his study.
February 27, 2023
An interesting overview of hate and cruelty. 3 stars because it just read like a novelty instead of a well noted historical book.
December 22, 2012
Not quite as good as I thought it may be, there actually wasn't too much in the way of interrogation conversations...I hoped to learn more about that. But it was interesting hearing about KSM's exploits and education in the US and about his upbringing. I felt that I learned a good deal about him I just felt that it could have been a bit more thorough in certain parts, like his capture and interrogations.
January 9, 2013
This book was very interesting. It gave me a lot of facts about the terrorists and the planning of September 11, 2001. It went into great detail about how the terrorists went about the attacks. It was very interesting and easy to read. I would recommend it to anyone with an interest in September 11, 2001.
April 1, 2014
You won't find any "rosebud" explanations nor romantic exploration of a mass murderer's psyche. Miniter minces no words when he defines KSM as an intelligent manipulator who wants nothing more than to be a rockstar terrorist. Everything else is an act.
August 2, 2013
This is a very well written story of KSM, based off of the available facts and research from open sources(including interviews). Reads like a journalistic novel but does have some author opinions. The opinions are not to be discounted by any way shape or form.
March 5, 2018
Wow! The author did some remarkable research on the background of KSM and other top Islamic terrorists and presented volumes of little known facts about their early years, how they took advantage of western laws and culture, their motivations, and the various terror organizations. It also explores how talented intelligence employees work tirelessly to find and take out these vicious terrorists often with little personal recognition.
January 22, 2026
What appeared to begin as a well written biography of KSM, and the events leading up to & after 9/11, quickly devolved into a novel length rant about liberals and their “soft take” on torture (ahem, sorry, “interrogation techniques”). Ending with the final line “KSM couldn’t be happier” gives the reader the last bit of evidence that the author’s motivation in writing this book was nothing more than an Obama-era liberal hit piece. Yawn.
February 25, 2013
Some many books that have been written about the 9/11 attacks and it's perpetrators are impressive for their level of research and attention to detail. KSM is one of the most fascinating figures of the 9/11 story but this book seems to add little to the profile. The information presented in this book has the depth of a really long wikipedia page. Miniter seems to have little concern with the how and why KSM became the primary planner of 9/11 (especially given he was never particularly devout nor had a life without a rage inducing incident so common to AQ heavyweights) and instead would just like you to know he thinks KSM is a terrible person. While I have no quarrel with that point, I read books on this subject to get a sense of how 9/11 was able to happen and/or to understand the world and war on terror since that time. Unfortunately "Mastermind" has little value in those terms.
July 12, 2011
Nothing new. Poor clip job.
March 3, 2012
Good. Very informative
January 23, 2013
I just can't believe:
A) that he was able to pull off all the terrorist activity that he did
B) that he is still alive
Scumbag!
A) that he was able to pull off all the terrorist activity that he did
B) that he is still alive
Scumbag!
June 15, 2014
Good info, poorly written
November 12, 2025
Despite the authors political bias, the book had plenty of interesting facts about KSM.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews