http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?
xml=/news/2005/07/15/ncleric315.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/07/15/ixnewstop
.html
West is to blame for bombers, say mullahs
By Peter Foster
(Filed: 15/07/2005)
In the spartan office of one of the largest Islamic schools in
Lahore, the mullah delivered without hesitation an answer to the
question that has been troubling Britain since the bombings: how did
four young, British-born men turn into suicide bombers?
Mullah Fazl-ur-Rahim, the head of the Jamia Ashrafia in the
Pakistani city, said: "It is injustice that is the source of all
conflict. We condemn such attacks unreservedly but the West - and Mr
Tony Blair and the people of Britain - must ask themselves honestly
about the reasons for it."
The news that one of the bombers, 22-year-old Shehzad Tanweer, spent
three months in Lahore at the end of last year, studying in an
Islamic school, or madrassa, fails to deflect Mullah Rahim.
"Show me a single madrassa that teaches students how to use a
Kalashnikov or strap bombs to themselves," he said. "You cannot,
because they do not exist."
For Mullah Rahim this is a clinching argument against anyone
suggesting that Pakistan's madrassas are a seed-bed for the violent,
anti--western ideologies that motivate young men such as the London
bombers.
His establishment, which has an English-language brochure to attract
foreign students, appears to be among the more moderate of
Pakistan's 20,000 Islamic schools.
He is proud to display a library with four computers and 30,000
religious books for the use of students whose ages range from nine
to 26.
All must learn the Koran by heart and the very best will master all
6,666 verses within six months, a feat that Mullah Rahim says is
plainly a miracle, a gift from God.
However, even here it is accepted without debate that the West - and
not the madrassa - is responsible for creating the conditions that
lead to terrorist atrocities such as the London bombings.
For many in Pakistan it is a seductive argument. The notion that
Tanweer could be sufficiently indoctrinated - or "brainwashed" as
one of his family in Leeds described it - by a three-month visit to
Lahore is dismissed.
Arif Jamal, a journalist from Lahore who has studied the madrassa
phenomenon for five years, believes the West can win the war on
terrorism only when it grasps that it is fighting a war of ideas,
which Pakistan's madrassas are prosecuting vigorously.
"The fact that Shehzad Tanweer decided to go to Pakistan to take up
an Islamic education indicates that he had already decided on which
path he would take," he said.
"Perhaps what he heard in Pakistan might have reinforced those
views, but ultimately the process of radicalisation and
indoctrination must have begun at home.
"The madrassas are not like the al-Qa'eda training camps of old. You
cannot attack them from the air or track them by satellite. They are
idea factories, not bomb factories."
Another madrassa owner, Mullah Riaz Durrani, who is also leading
spokesman for the Jamiah Ulema Islam (JUI), one of Pakistan's
traditional Islamic political parties, said: "It is not speeches in
madrassas that make these young men into suicide bombers.
"That job is done by the Americans and the British themselves, by
Fox television and CNN, who broadcast the outrages of Abu Ghraib and
Guantanamo Bay.
"Britain should ask itself why a young man from Leeds, educated in a
British school, not a Pakistani madrassa, should decide to become a
suicide bomber."
Such arguments, which find a receptive audience across Pakistan, are
the more acceptable face of an extreme anti-westernism that
permeates the traditional Islamic sections of Pakistani society.
Pakistan's president, Gen Pervaiz Musharraf, himself a victim of
assassination attempts by Islamic militants, has advocated a course
of "enlightened moderation" with the madrassas.
However, very few have taken up the offer to modernise a curriculum
introduced in a Baghdad school in 1057.
And this month fresh attempts at reform - introducing maths, science
and computing - were rejected at a major conference attended by
Pakistan's minister for religious affairs.
--------------------------
Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL
PROTECTED]
--------------------------
Brooks Isoldi, editor
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.intellnet.org
Post message: [email protected]
Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
*** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has
not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. OSINT, as a part of
The Intelligence Network, is making it available without profit to OSINT
YahooGroups members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of
intelligence and law enforcement organizations, their activities, methods,
techniques, human rights, civil liberties, social justice and other
intelligence related issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes
only. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material
as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use
this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,'
you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
For more information go to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
