At Pakistan’s ‘Taliban U’ They Continue To Teach Hate And Violence

The Maulana's classroom at the Dar ul Uloom Haqqania madrassa at Akora Khattak near Peshawar. 1,500 students. BBC

EXCLUSIVE: At Pakistan’s ‘Taliban U,’ Jihadists Major In Anti-Americanism -- FOX News

A 90-minute drive northwest of Islamabad is an Islamic seminary that is considered the ivory tower of terrorism, a jihadist factory that has produced prominent Taliban fighters and its leadership for decades.

Unofficially dubbed “University of Jihad,” Dar ul Uloom Haqqania [House of Knowledge and Truthfulness] counts Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Muhammad Omar and Jalaluddin Haqqani, founder of the dreaded Haqqani Network, among its alumni. Names of most of more than 8,000 former students who have passed through the seminary are encased in glass-covered wooden frames that hang on the walls inside the main building.

“The Haqqanis got their surname from Haqqania, this madrassa” “Ammanullah,” a proud member of the Class of 2007, told FoxNews.com during a recent tour, a rare look inside the seminary along the Grand Trunk Road in Akora Khattak.

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My Comment: Why this "school" continues to remain open (and protected by the government) is beyond me .... but such is the sorry state of Pakistan.

How Radical Islam Is Promoted

Hard-Line Pakistani Schools Lure Foreigners -- MSNBC/AP

U.S., others fear students could export extremism to home countries.

KARACHI, Pakistan - Anas bin Saleem, a 12-year-old American, spends seven hours a day sitting cross-legged on the floor memorizing the Quran.

He is one of thousands of foreigners who have flocked to conservative Islamic schools in Pakistan, despite a government ban, the Associated Press has found through interviews with officials, documents, visits to the schools and encounters with dozens of students.

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My Comment: After many assurances from the Pakistani Government that these radical madrassas were being closed .... we now know (with no surprise) that these schools of hate are still opened.

If we want to win in this war against radical Islam, one of the strategies that must be implemented is to attack the philosophical and educational aspects of this extremism. But how can this succeed if the institutions that permit this hate are permitted to operate in the open and to be able to attract thousands, while other educational institutions that can serve as an alternative are limited and/or are too expensive to be used by the poor.

Feeding The Islamic War Machine To Spread Jihad

Pakistan Madrass

WNU Editor: Because of Pakistan's failed public education system, many poor Pakistani parents send their children to Islamic Madrassas to receive a basic education. Unfortunately, Islamic extremists have been using these schools to recruit soldiers and suicide bombers for the purpose of spreading jihad.

In the past, these schools have been in the Frontier Regions of Pakistan. But they are now in the heartland of Pakistan. Terrorwonk examines this development, and his comments and observations are worth remembering. (Hat Tip to Counter Terrorism Blog for this story).

Madrassas Extending Into Pakistani Heartlands
-- The Terror Wonk

This short analysis from the invaluable Middle East Media Research Institute is well worth a read. It discusses the controversy Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) leader, Asif Zardari set off when, while delivering the keynote address at the 23rd Internationalist Socialist Congress, he described madrassas as propagating Islamist extremism.

Unsurprisingly, Pakistan’s religious leaders condemned him. But reading the report, and these notes from MEMRI’s Urdu-Pashto Blog also indicates that the madrassas have spread from the Northwest Frontier Province into the rest of the country – including the Punjabi heartland. Although Islam is central to Pakistan’s national identity, the traditional practice of Islam was relatively moderate. In fact there have been skirmishes between different factions within the Sunni community (not to mention the bloody Shia-Sunni violence within Pakistan) – particularly in Karachi.

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