US Ignored Flying Terrorist

[Guest guest]

A flying terrorist US intelligence chose to ignore

 

 

 

 

Praveen Swami

 

NEW DELHI, Sept. 18

 

EVIDENCE that terrorist groups were recruiting pilots trained in the

United States was available two years ago -- but seems to have been

ignored by that country's intelligence services.

 

The story of Nadeem Khatib, a top terrorist killed by Border Security

Force troops in an encounter on February 21, 1999, is strikingly

similar to those of the pilots used to crash aircraft into the

Pentagon and World Trade Center.

 

Khatib, the son of retired Jammu & Kashmir Government chief engineer

Inayatullah Khatib, is believed to have been recruited by a terrorist

group, al-Ansar, linked to Osama bin Laden. He was recruited while

studying to obtain a commercial pilot's licence from the South East

School of Aeronautics in Georgia, United States.

 

Khatib, 32 years old at the time of his death, formed an early

relationship with terrorism in Jammu & Kashmir. A close associate of

Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front chief Ishfaq Majeed Wani, Khatib

remained on the edges of the violent secessionist movement until his

mentor's death in 1990.

 

Soon afterwards, the affluent Khatib family decided to send him

outside the State and fund his desire to learn how to fly. Khatib,

however, completed merely 17 of the 300 flying hours required for a

commercial pilot's licence before returning home to Srinagar.

 

Soon afterwards, Khatib left for the South East School of

Aeronautics, Georgia, where he obtained a licence and some 700 hours

of flying experience. It is during this time that the young Srinagar

resident is believed to have come in contact with the Islamic far-

Right.

 

Little is known about the US operations of al-Ansar, but several bin

Laden-linked organisations have used the same name, which literally

means "the helpers". For example, both the Isbat-ul-Ansar in Lebanon

and the Harkat-ul-Ansar (now Harkat-ul-Mujahideen) in Pakistan have

been funded and trained by bin Laden.

 

After obtaining his pilot's licence, Khatib returned briefly to India

in 1995, ostensibly to search for a job. He soon left for the US,

this time to complete a jet pilot's course from an institute in

Atlanta. In the event, he continued to work in that city as a

commercial pilot and instructor. In the meanwhile, Khatib's links

with al-Ansar deepened.

 

Before his final visit to Jammu & Kashmir, the pilot is known to have

trained and served with terrorist units in Bosnia, Chechnya and

Afghanistan. No one knows for certain just why he was despatched to

Jammu & Kashmir in 1999, for the Khatib family claims to have lost

contact with their son several months before his death. A caller from

London, family sources say, told them of Nadeem Khatib's death in

Udhampur.

 

Over the next year, new evidence emerged on possible links between

Nadeem Khatib's activities in the US and terrorism in India. On

September 23, 2000, the Srinagar police arrested the pilot's elder

brother, millionaire businessman Wasim Khatib, on charges of helping

to build an overground network for the ultra-Right al-Badr terrorist

organisation.

 

Investigators found that Wasim Khatib was handling hawala remittances

from West Asia and Pakistan for al-Badr leader Arifeen Khan, who uses

the code-name Lukmaan. Interestingly, Khatib was a prominent member

of the Srinagar Golf Club, and his membership had been sponsored by

an influential local resident. Sources say Arifeen Khan escaped

arrest at the Khatib residence because police officials, apprehensive

of the family's association with the influential person, failed to

carry out a search.

 

Incredibly, sources told Business Line, United States intelligence

officials showed no interest in the Khatib story, although it was

widely reported in India at the time. India and the US have regular

exchanges of intelligence information. The Intelligence Bureau

regularly passes on material of possible operational significance to

the Research and Analysis Wing, which in turn handles international

interaction.

 

While Indian officials had no further interest in Khatib after his

elimination, no one seems to have any clear explanation of why US

organisations showed no interest in exploring his background and

connections.

 

"The fact is," says one senior Indian intelligence official, "that

the Americans just weren't bothered as long as the terrorists didn't

kill Americans."