‘Doc’s surgical strike

Times Sq. ‘plotter’ charged with beheading

He called himself “The Doctor,” and, oddly, his Facebook name was “James Klein.”

But despite his cherubic face and quirky nicknames, the oldest of the three men alleged to have plotted terrorist attacks in Times Square and on two city subway lines was a man to be reckoned with in his native Philippines.

When FBI agents busted Russell Langi Salic in Manila in April, he was already imprisoned on murder and kidnapping charges.

Salic, 37, an orthopedic surgeon, played at most a small part as the alleged banker in the trio’s thwarted plot, charged with wiring a paltry $423.80 to an FBI undercover agent.

But Filipino authorities have long had their eye on Salic, a known associate of the violent Philippinesbased pro-Islamic State group Maute, within which he was called “Abu Khalid.”

In April, 2016, Salic and a group of fellow Maute jihadists allegedly helped kidnap and behead two men at a sawmill in the southern Philippine town of Butig.

Now, the same Manila court that charged Salic in the gruesome mur- ders is weighing a US request to extradite him to New York.

The court will decide whether he must first face his criminal complaint in the Philippines.

That Salic may be not just a banker, but a murderer gives chilling weight to his alleged statements to the FBI’s undercover agent.

Salic allegedly told the agent that he hoped someday to wage jihad by joining ISIS in Syria, but that in the meantime “it would be a great pleasure if we can slaughter” people in New York, according to the complaint against him.

Salic also boasted that the Philip- pines was “not strict” about terrorism.

“Terrorists from all over the world usually come here as a breeding ground for terrorists . . . ha ha ha ha,” Salic told his co-defendants in the New York plot, Abdulrahman El Bahnasawy, 19, a Canadian who allegedly purchased bomb-making materials, and Talha Haroon, 19, an American citizen living in Pakistan.

At one point, El Bahnasawy told the undercover agent that Salic was a trustworthy ISIS supporter who had moved money for jihad on other occasions, the feds allege.