Terrorist pulled out of plan after observing September 11 carnage

A MALAYSIAN recruited by al-Qaida to pilot a plane in a second wave of September 11-style attacks on the United States pulled out after observing the carnage of the 2001 assaults, south-east Asian officials said yesterday.

US President George W Bush on Thursday outlined details of an alleged plot to hijack an airliner and fly it into a skyscraper in Los Angeles. He said co-operation between Washington and several Asian countries helped expose it.

The plan never appeared close to the stage where it could be put into execution. Scores of arrests in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attacks severely curtailed al-Qaida and its south-east Asian affiliate, Jemaah Islamiyah.

Security officials in south-east Asia yesterday said Malaysian engineer Zaini Zakaria was among three men al-Qaida was preparing to take part in an attack on the US west coast.

Zakaria, 38, has been detained without trial in Malaysia since he surrendered in December 2002.

He travelled to al-Qaida camps in Afghanistan in 1999, where he met senior figures in the terrorist group, a Malaysian security official said. When he returned to Malaysia the same year, Zakaria enrolled in a flight school and obtained a license to fly a small plane. He then began making inquiries in Australia about getting a license to fly a jet, the official said.

But Zakaria was never told what his mission for al-Qaida would be. When he saw media coverage of the September 11 attacks, he severed his ties with the militants. Zakaria told interrogators that he “didn’t want that kind of jihad”.