Lawyers for the accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed are urging a federal appeals panel to let his scheduled guilty plea in the attacks go forward

The Biden administration has doubled down on its unusual court battle to derail a plea deal that the government itself had reached with accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

At a hearing beginning on Friday morning, Mohammed was scheduled to plead guilty to his role in the 11 September 2001 attacks, when hijackers seized passenger planes and crashed them into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon outside of Washington. Another plane crashed into a field in Pennsylvania after passengers fought back.

It's the latest development in the U.S. military's struggle to bring to justice the man charged with planning the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

Alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed had been scheduled to enter his guilty plea on Friday. Two of his alleged accomplices were to plead guilty next week. Those plea deals would allow them to forgo a trial and escape the risk of the death penalty. Instead, they would receive sentences of up to life in prison.

The justice department argued it would cause irreparable harm if Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two co-defendants' pleas were accepted.

The Biden administration succeeded in blocking a plea deal for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed after a federal court issued an administrative stay of a hearing set for Friday. The alleged 9/11 mastermind was expected to plead guilty as part of a plea agreement worked out by military prosecutors that would have removed the death penalty as a possibility in his case.

The Biden administration has temporarily blocked a plea deal for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged planner of the 9/11 attacks. The government requested this pause to avert the death penalty waiver for him.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had sought to withdraw agreements with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two others charged in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The Justice Department, on behalf of the Pentagon, on Tuesday asked an appeals court to block an effort to enforce plea deals reached with four accused conspirators of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The Department of Defense filed an emergency request with a federal appeals court Tuesday in an effort to stop plea deals given to three accused terrorists involved in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.