Zaini Zakaria, a Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) and al-Qaeda operative who has been assigned to a 9/11-style operation, is instructed to take flight training by al-Qaeda commander Mohammed Atef and travels to Malaysia to obtain a pilot’s license. He meets fellow JI operative Faiz abu Baker Bafana in Kuala Lumpur and visits the Royal Selangor Flying Club at a nearby Malaysian Air Force base. Zaini had earlier traveled to Afghanistan with JI leader Hambali, Bafana, and another operative called Zamzulri in 1999 to receive military training, and had met Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in Karachi, Pakistan. Zaini obtains a pilot’s license and makes inquiries in Australia about learning to fly jets, but eventually drops out of the plot in 2001. [9/11 Commission, 6/16/2004, pp. 17; London Times, 2/10/2006; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 3/8/2006] The school may have been recommended by Yazid Sufaat. An important al-Qaeda summit was held at Sufaat’s Kuala Lumpur condominium in January 2000 (see January 5-8, 2000). Sufaat will later claim that some of the summit attendees (including two future 9/11 hijackers) asked him about flying schools in Malaysia, and he recommended the one in the region where the Royal Selangor Flying Club is. [Time (Asia), 2/5/2002] Zacarias Moussaoui will later visit the same flying school while staying with Sufaat (see Early September 2000). The CIA stopped the surveillance of Sufaat’s condominium some point in 2000 (see Between February and September 2000); it is not known if this happened before or after Zakaria was in Malaysia.
Early September 2000: Moussaoui Checks Out Malaysian Flight School
While in Malaysia (see September-October 2000), Zacarias Moussaoui visits the Royal Selangor Flying Club at a Malaysian Air Force base near Kuala Lumpur to inquire about learning to fly there, but decides not to pursue lessons after learning the cost. Moussaoui is driven to the club by Jemaah Islamiyah operative Faiz abu Baker Bafana, who had previously taken another al-Qaeda trainee pilot, Zaini Zakaria, to the same flying club (see (Spring 2000)). Moussaoui will eventually begin his training in the US (see February 23-June 2001). [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 3/8/2006]
