17 members of the Afghan military have gone AWOL from an Air Force base in Texas where foreign military officers who are training to become pilots are taught English.   A nationwide alert has been issued. 

Besides the fact that these Afghanis are AWOL, there another little problem. Both the officers and enlisted men have security badges that give them access to secure U.S. defense installations.  This information comes from the lookout bulletin, “Afghan Military Deserters in CONUS [Continental U.S.],” written by Naval Criminal Investigative Service in Dallas.  FoxNews.com was able to obtain a copy of the bulletin.

The BOLO (Be on the Lookout For Bulletin.) was distributed to local and federal law enforcement officials on Wednesday night. 

The missing Afghans were enrolled in the Defense Language Institute at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas.  This program (DLI) teaches English to military pilot candidates and other air force prospects from our foreign allies.

Per Gary Emery, Chief of Public Affairs, 37th Training Wing, at Lackland AFB:

I can confirm that 17 have gone missing from the Defense Language Institute.   They disappeared over the course of the last two years, (Two years?  And we’re just now hearing about them?) and none in the last three months. 

First Lt. Javed Aryan, who went AWOL in January 2010,was the most recent to disappear from Lackland Air Force Base.   The others found in the NCIS report disappeared at various times last year.

A Department of Defense Common Access Card was given to each of the Afghans.  It is an identification card used to gain access to secure military installations, with which they “could attempt to enter DOD installations,” per  the bulletin.   Base security officers were asked to pass out the bulletin to their people.

The bulletin reads:

The visas issued to these personnel have been revoked, or are in the process of being revoked. Lookouts have been placed in TECS.

Treasury Enforcement Communications System (TECS), is a computer-based database used to identify people suspected of violating federal law which is shared by federal, state and local law enforcement agencies. 

Just to make us all feel better, Emery said Afghans are not the only foreign military who have gone AWOL from Lackland:

In 2009, the Defense Language Institute English Language Center reported two other students from countries other than Afghanistan went missing.  They include one Iraqi who requested asylum in Houston and one Djiboutian whose status is unknown. To date in 2010, one student from Tunisia and one from Guinea-Bissau have gone AWOL in addition to the Afghani student [Aryan] who went AWOL in January. 

To put these numbers in perspective, more than 3,400 international students entered training at DLI in 2009, including 228 from Afghanistan.

Yesterday, a senior law enforcement official said that the Afghans’ disappearance was more of an immigration violation than a security threat, saying there are no “strong indications to any terrorism nexus or impending threat.”   Uh huh.  And the Times Square Dude had no ties to Pakistan, either. 

The official also said that:

An unspecified number of the 17 have been caught. A number of these guys have already been located or accounted for by now.  Some are in removal proceedings to be deported already. (Authorities) still need to locate the others, and that is why the bulletin went out.  Some could mean one.

The official said the information is “kind of old” — up to two years — but added:

It is important in the sense that some people look to come to the U.S. and will take advantage of invitations to train or attend a conference or to study, etc. But their real intention is to get to the U.S. and start a new life. It is not completely rare for this to happen….

Although we are vigilant and need to work toward not allowing this to happen, this alert should “not necessarily” be described as “a national security threat, more of a ‘hey these guys violated our laws and we need to find them.

Included in the bulletin are photos of the 17 men, accompanied by their dates of birth and their TECS Lookout numbers. 

Here are the names and birth dates of these men.

Abdul Ghani Barakzai, born 8/8/1977

Mohd Ali Karimi, born 9/3/1982

Mohammad Nasim Fateh Zada, born 12/4/1966

Aminullah Sangarwal, born 8/27/1982

Mohd Ahmadi, born 5/5/1978

Ahad Abdulahad, born 5/5/1984

Sayed Qadir Shah Habiby, born 5/7/1985

Javed Aryan a.k.a. Aryan Javed, born 1/1/1987

Mirwais Qassmi, born 4/24/1974

Barat Noorani, born 6/3/1981

Atiqullah Habibi, two dates of birth are listed on the alert: 6/2/1982 and 7/2/1982

Ahmad Sameer Samar, born 5/2/1983

Mohamed Fahim Faqier, born 6/1/1987

Obaiddullah Abrahimy, born 8/1/1979

Sayed Nasir Hashimi, born 4/5/1972

Shawali Kakar, born 12/31/1979

Khan Padshah Amiri, born 4/1/1978

The bulletin asks:

If any Afghan pictured herein is encountered, detain the subject and contact your local Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office, the FBI or NCIS.

According to Chief of Public Affairs Emery:

When a DLI student goes missing, officials report the incident to the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement as well as the sponsoring service branch. Invitational Travel Orders, passports, driver licenses, and airline tickets are revoked in order to hamper travel opportunities for the missing students. 

Sorry, Chief Emery, that does not make me feel any better.  In fact, it reminds me of another story involving pilots from the Middle East:

Court documents in the case of Zacarias Moussaoui, the 20th hijacker from 9/11/2001, outline how the three main leaders in Florida — Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah — arrived there in the summer of 2000. Interviews and media accounts fill many of the gaps left by the FBI.

Atta, al-Shehhi and Jarrah had attended Technical University in Hamburg, Germany, in the late 1990s. They had been roommates there, part of an Islamic student group that hated Western ways.  Atta signed a “will” in 1996, pledging to die in a “holy war” against the infidels.

The federal indictment against Moussaoui told how more than $114,000 from the United Arab Emirates was distributed that summer to Atta and al-Shehhi through SunTrust bank accounts in Florida. Much more would come later from the al-Qaida terrorist network.  The cost of the operation was nearly $500,000.

The indictment said Atta and al-Shehhi took flying lessons from July to December at Huffman Aviation, a flight school in Venice.

Jarrah showed up that summer in Venice also, taking piloting classes at a neighboring flight school.

When Atta and al-Shehhi got their commercial pilots licenses in December 2000, Florida was still pre-occupied with the close election that put George W. Bush in the White House.

A few days later, Atta and al-Shehhi moved over to Florida’s east coast, in Opa-Locka, where each paid $1,500 cash for three hours in a Boeing 727 simulator.

During the spring and summer of 2001, eight additional hijackers came to the United States and settled in Florida. Nine opened SunTrust bank accounts.  Three others arrived in San Diego,completing the five-man team based in California.

That spring and summer, the Florida terrorist group made itself at home in South Florida, renting apartments and condos, attending gyms, and going to restaurants.  They were seen a lot, hsanging around Hollywood and Delray Beach.

These terrorists assimilated into American Society,excuse the expression, flying under the radar, only to strike on September 11th, 2001, killing 2,819 in the word Terrorist attack ever on American soil.

Those terrorists were not expert pilots like the Afghans that are missing.  What sort of damage to America could 17 Afghan pilots with military training accomplish, if they were intent on declaring jihad?

I pray that is not their intention. 

Sources:  foxnews.com, sptimes.com, nymag.com