How terrorists are created.
http://www.westernresistance.com/blog/archives/002547.html
http://ibloga.blogspot.com/2006/02/boys-escape-from-madrassa-in-chains.html
July 12, 2006
Pakistan: Muslim Teacher Blows Himself Up In Class
One wonders exactly what sort of subjects are on the curriculum in Pakistan's madrassas, or Islamic seminaries. News from Agence France Press via the Daily Times reports that in the divisional district of Dera Ismail Khan, in North-West Frontier Province, a man believed to be a pro-Taliban militant killed himself by accident in a religious school.
Apparently he was handling the grenade when it went off. He has been identified as Abdul Rahman. A security official said on condition of anonymity that the pin on his grenade was accidentally removed, and that two of his companions were wounded in the blast.
The incident happened in the town of Jandola, which lies next to South Waziristan district, where Pakistan Taliban have taken control, and have instituted Sharia law in the main city of Wana.
The issue of extremist Islam being taught in such madrassas has been questioned after two of the 7/7 bombers, Shehzad Tanweer and Mohammed Sidique Khan, were said to have attended an extremist madrassa in Pakistan before carrying out their suicide attacks in London last year. As a result, in July last year, 1,400 foreign students at madassas were asked to leave. In August, registration forms were handed to seminaries, requesting details of funding and spending.
Last August, the Daily Times noted that even standard school textbooks in state schools were advocating extremism, outside of the private madrassa system. These books describe Jews as tightfisted money-lenders, and Christians are vengeful conquerors. One standard school textbook even states that children should be willing to die as martyrs for Islam.
As we reported last September, the private madrassas have become havens for sexual and physical abuse of students. Some madrassas regularly keep their students tied up in chains. Chaining of children in madrassas also happens in India.
There are at least 20,000 madrassas in Pakistan, and at the end of last year, madrassas were given a deadline of December 31 to register and submit financial audits and performance records. The idea was then abandoned. 12,000 madrassas had not signed their registrations.
A similar move to register madrassas and have them disclose their accounts was urged by Musharraf in Spring, 2002, but this too appears to have been ignored. Most of the leadership of Afghanistan's Taliban were educated in Pakistani Deobandi madrassas, such as the Haqqania in North-West Frontier Province, where Mullah Omar was trained.
Now, apparently 75% of madrassas have registered, states Radio Australia, and Pakistan's foreign minister, Khursheed Kasuri, states that with registration, a system of curbing extremism can be negotiated.
Reuters reports that Kasuri has said in Washington: "We have done a lot. A lot more needs to be done. There's no tolerance for anybody who is teaching people how to fight. The government takes very strong action."
Next week, Javed Ashraf Qazi, the education minister, will be visiting Washington for talks, and to discuss changes within the madrassa system.
About a million boys are "educated" in the madrassas, and for many poor families, such an education is regarded as acceptable. The boys are fed and often boarded at these madrassas, and the families do not have to pay for this. Khursheed Kasuri has admitted that one obstacle to reform is that "madrassas are a major NGO and the poorest of the poor go there."
The federal government of Pakistan has now asked, states the Daily Times for a full list of madrassas which are being funded by militants in the North-West Frontier Province.
The incident in Jandola underscores the urgent necessity of such action. The NWFP administration (it has its own Assembly) has been asked to monitor the activities of these seminaries.
Sources at the Home Department state that madrassas which had previously been closed down are now re-opening, this time at the private residences of the madrassa teachers. Intelligence agencies have also been charged to keep tabs on madrassas, and inform the federal government of their findings.
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