'9/11 mastermind' allowed to wear fatigues at Guantánamo trial The defence also said it would argue that the defendants had not been, as the prosecution alleges, "unlawful combatants" but soldiers and thus denying them the right to military-style clothing would undermine his case. Prosecutors argued that KSM should not be allowed to wear a uniform for security reasons, but the military judge, Colonel James Pohl, dismissed this concern at the pretrial hearing. I'm not going to forbid the camouflage vest unless it is a US army uniform. The only prohibition - the accused cannot wear clothing inconsistent with his confinement status. Before Sheikh Mohammed, by his own admission, joined Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network and organised the attacks of September 11, 2001 on New York and Washington, he fought the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s. In that war, the Afghan resistance was backed by foreign Islamist volunteers, supported in turn with weapons and cash by the United States and Saudi Arabia, before some of them went on to become anti-Western militants.