US charges six suspects over 9/11

He said there would be "no secret trials" and that they would be "as completely open as possible".

"Relatively little amounts of evidence will be classified," Gen Hartmann said.

The other five defendants are Ramzi Binalshibh, a Yemeni, Walid bin Attash, also from Yemen, Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, who was born in Balochistan, Pakistan, and raised in Kuwait, Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi, a Saudi, and Mohammed al-Qahtani.

Gen Hartmann said the charges included conspiracy, murder in violation of the laws of war, attacking civilians, destruction of property and terrorism.

All but Mr Qahtani and Mr Hawsawi are also charged with hijacking or hazarding an aircraft.

The charges listed "169 overt acts allegedly committed by the defendants in furtherance of the September 11 events".

Gen Thomas Hartmann said: "The accused will have his opportunity to have his day in court.

The US has about 275 prisoners left in the detention centre

"It's our obligation to move the process forward, to give these people their rights."

In listing more details of the charges against the defendants, Gen Hartmann alleged that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed had proposed the attacks to al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden in 1996, had obtained funding and overseen the operation and the training of hijackers in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a Kuwaiti of Pakistani extraction, was said to have been al-Qaeda's third in command when he was captured in Pakistan in March 2003.

He has reportedly admitted to decapitating kidnapped US journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002 but these charges do not relate to that.

The BBC's Vincent Dowd in Washington says Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has said he planned every part of the 9/11 attacks but that his confession may prove problematic as the CIA admitted using controversial "waterboarding" techniques.

Human rights groups regard the procedure as torture.

Legal challenge

The charges will now be sent to Susan Crawford, the convening authority for the military commissions, to determine whether they will be referred to trial.

Any trials would be held by military tribunal under the terms of the Military Commissions Act, passed by the US Congress in 2006.

The Act set up tribunals to try terror suspects who were not US citizens.

The law is being challenged by two prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, who say they are being deprived of their rights to have their cases heard by a US civilian court.

Nineteen men hijacked four planes in the 9/11 attacks. Two planes hit the World Trade Center in New York, another the Pentagon in Washington and the fourth crashed in Pennsylvania.

The Pentagon has announced charges against six Guantanamo Bay prisoners over their alleged involvement in the 11 September 2001 attacks in the US.

Prosecutors will seek the death penalty for the six, who include alleged plot mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

The charges, the first for Guantanamo inmates directly related to 9/11, are expected to be heard by a controversial military tribunal system.

About 3,000 people died in the hijacked plane attacks.

The Guantanamo Bay detention centre, in south-east Cuba, began to receive US military prisoners in January 2002. Hundreds have been released without charge but about 275 remain and the US hopes to try about 80.

Tribunal process

Brig Gen Thomas Hartmann, a legal adviser to the head of the Pentagon's Office of Military Commissions, said the charges alleged a "long-term, highly sophisticated plan by al-Qaeda to attack the US".

Clinton tries to stop Obama momentum

Clinton lost in Maine on Sunday, a day after the New York senator and former first lady was stung by defeats in Nebraska, Washington state, Louisiana and the U.S. Virgin Islands. She is struggling to overcome Obama's financial and political rally that came on the back of his impressive showing in last week's "Super Tuesday" series of Democratic contests in 22 states.

The Democratic nomination is far from decided, with weeks or months of campaigning still ahead. Clinton is an experienced, well-financed campaigner certainly capable of pulling off more surprise wins, as she did Jan. 8 in New Hampshire.

In the latest overall totals in The Associated Press count, Clinton had 1,136 delegates to 1,108 for Obama. The totals include so-called superdelegates, which are party leaders not chosen at primaries or caucuses, free to change their minds. A total of 2,025 delegates is required to win the nomination.

In Maine, with 99 percent of the participating precincts reporting, Obama led with 59 percent of the vote, to 40 percent for Clinton. Obama won 15 of Maine's delegates to the national convention and Clinton won nine.

Obama, who seeks to be the U.S.'s first black president, was buoyant after his weekend winning sweep. He even won a Grammy on Sunday for his audio version of his book "The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts On Reclaiming The American Dream," beating former Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter in the best spoken word album category.

"I have the ability to bring people together," he said. Because of that, he said, "I think I can beat John McCain more effectively," he said, challenging the presumptive Republican nominee for November general elections.

WASHINGTON - Barack Obama scored a clean sweep of five weekend contests, eroding rival Hillary Rodham Clinton's narrow lead in the Democratic presidential race and prompting the former first lady to reshuffle her campaign staff in a bid to stop his momentum.

For now, at least, the wind is at Obama's back. Clinton replaced campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle with longtime aide Maggie Williams ahead of nomination races Tuesday in Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, D.C., where polls published Sunday showed Obama leading.

The two states and the U.S. capital all have a sizable number of black Democratic voters, a constituency that has aided Obama in earlier contests.

McCain, too, was nursing Saturday and Sunday losses. He took the weekend off from campaigning despite embarrassing, but not pivotal, losses against preacher-turned-politician Mike Huckabee in two Republican races on Saturday. Huckabee, a favorite of evangelical Christians, beat McCain in Kansas and Louisiana, highlighting the difficulty the veteran Arizona senator faces in convincing the party's core right-wing blocs that he is one of them.

McCain, however, remained far ahead of Huckabee in the delegate count, and retained his virtually assured nomination that came on the back of rival Mitt Romney's decision to suspend his campaign. McCain has 719 delegates out of a total 1,191 needed to secure the Republican nomination. Huckabee had 234 delegates.

Since his string of Super Tuesday wins, McCain has concentrated on wooing conservatives who view him as a political maverick on key issues like immigration and tax cuts. The former Vietnam prisoner-of-war and decorated Navy pilot secured a boost Sunday when Bush referred to him in a taped interview as a "true conservative." But the president also stressed that McCain must do more to win over conservatives.