US Ignored Flying Terrorist

09-18-2001, 01:51 PM

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."