Interesting point about khalas. Romanization of "ha" is problematic, "kh" is often used as you state (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E1%B8%AA%C4%81%CA%BE). But for speakers who don't normally use this sound, e.g. English, this can lead to mispronunciation, where it is replaced by a "k" using backformation based on this transliteration. For example khan is usually pronounced as kahn in the US (as in "The Wrath of ..." or for a more recent one: Khaleesi) which is quite off. In this case using "h" would have been better perhaps.

As the Wikipedia page mentions some IE languages also have this sound, but in this case it is generally transliterated as "ch", not "kh", e.g. Loch Ness, which adds to the confusion.