On a satellite photo, he picks out Salman Pak's main features. In the southern part of the camp, at a bend in the Tigris River, is the barracks used for non-lraqi Arabs, Islamic fundamentalists who first came to Salman Pak in 1995 to be trained in classes of 24 by al-Qurairy's closest friend, Brigadier General Jassim Rashid al-Dulaimi. He is a man who practices what he preaches: he is wanted by Lebanese authorities for the 1994 murder of an opposition leader in Beirut. As recently as the summer of 2000, al-Qurairy saw the Arab students being taught to hijack aircraft on Salman Pak's own passenger jet, an Old Russian Tupolev. They all took a special course, he says, "how to gain control of the cockpit and passengers without using firearms." Professional pride meant the Iraqis ensured the Islamists reached a high standard: "When we train non-lraqis, we're not training them to preach in a mosque. We don't expect them to preach in a mosque, but to carry out offensive duties." But al- Dulaimi and his fellow instructors, all members of Saddam's secular Ba'ath Party, regarded their Islamist students with contempt. "When Jassim and I go for a drink after work, Jassim says they are sons of bitches. They have all this work to do, but they spend half their time praying."
-- Vanity Fair, Inside Saddam's Terror Regime -- January 21, 2002
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NYT: What kind of training went on, and who was being trained?
Sabah Khodada: Training is majorly on terrorism. They would be trained on assassinations, kidnapping, hijacking of airplanes, hijacking of buses, public buses, hijacking of trains and all other kinds of operations related to terrorism.
NYT: The people being trained were Iraqis in one group, and non-Iraqis, or foreign nationals, in another?
Sabah Khodada: Non-Iraqis were trained separately from us. There were strict orders not to meet with them and not to talk to them. And even when they conduct their training, their training has to occur at times different from the times when we conduct the Iraqis our own training.
-- Sabah Khodada was a captain in the Iraqi army from 1982 to 1992. He worked at what he describes as a highly secret terrorist training camp at Salman Pak (see Khodada's hand-drawn map of the camp), an area south of Baghdad. In this translated interview, conducted in association with The New York Times on Oct. 14, 2001, Khodada describes what went on at Salman Pak, including details on training hijackers. He emigrated to the U.S. in May 2001.
NTY: And they trained people to hijack airplanes?
Sabah Khodada: Yes.
NYT: For what purpose?
Sabah Khodada: It has been said openly in the media and even to us, from the highest command, that the purpose of establishing Saddam's fighters is to attack American targets and American interests. This is known. There's no doubt about it.
-- New York Times interview with Iraqi Army Captain Sabah Khodada on October 14, 2001 (transcript courtesy of PBS' Frontline.
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United States Marines searching a shattered former Headquarters of the Iraqi Republican Guard have found what one military offficial calls 'critical' documents on enemy weapons and communications.
At another site they found the shell of a jet believe to be used to practice hijackings.
The finds were in Salman Pak, just southeast of Baghdad.
United States Military officials say that there is a suspected weapons of mass destruction site in the town that dates back to 1991.
There is also an airstrip in the town that the Bush Administration says Iraq used more recently to offer terrorist training to Islamic militants.
-- Associated Press, April 6, 2003
Sabah Khodada was a captain in the Iraqi army from 1982 to 1992. He worked at what he describes as a highly secret terrorist training camp at Salman Pak (see Khodada's hand-drawn map of the camp), an area south of Baghdad. In this translated interview, conducted in association with The New York Times on Oct. 14, 2001, Khodada describes what went on at Salman Pak, including details on training hijackers. He emigrated to the U.S. in May 2001. (Editor's Note: Although U.S. officials acknowledge terrorists were trained at Salman Pak, they say it is unlikely that these activities were related to the Sept. 11 attacks. It should also be noted that the two defectors interviewed for this report have been brought to FRONTLINE's attention by members of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), a dissident organization seeking to overthrow Saddam Hussein.)"
SNIPPET FROM INTERVIEW:
Where is the camp located near? You could describe where it's geographically located.
Yes. It's southeast of Baghdad, about 25 kilometers from outside of Baghdad ... . I think the American government should have pictures of this camp from the air. I know for a fact that on January 1995, the United Nations came and took pictures of this camp. But they don't know -- neither the United Nations nor the American government -- what's going on inside this camp.
But they can see the 707, or the train?
On a Friday, which is equivalent to Sunday here, it's a holiday, was on January 1995. They came and the United Nations inspectors visited us. They went all the way inside the camp. They saw the plane, they saw the train, and they didn't care anything about it, because the story was, they told ... his commanders told the United Nation, "This is a camp to train police, anti-riots police."