Religious Seminaries or Jehadi Recruitment Centers

Lahore– Pakistan’s enormous madrassa (religious seminaries) sector has been at the centre of debates on extremism and radicalization of society ever since the Musharraf regime had joined the US-led war on terror in the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks. However, seven years after these attacks, it was the bloody Lal Masjid operation in the heart of Islamabad that had reinforced the Western notion about the Pakistani religious seminaries being the breeding nurseries for terrorists and suicide bombers.

The much trumpeted claims made by the former Musharraf regime of having introduced drastic madrassa reforms to halt the flow of recruits into militant groups and to ensure that they are not used as recruitment centres for jehad, came to a standstill after the Lal Masjid episode. The July 2007 Red Mosque bloodbath had proved that the traditional religious school system in Pakistan is now rotten to the core and it continues to operate as the breeding factory for the radical Islamist ideology as well as the recruitment centre for terrorist networks. Having cleared the Lal Masjid compound after the ruthless battle, the Pakistan army reportedly recovered piles of highly sophisticated weapons, ranging from RPG-6 and phosphorous grenades to suicide jackets and high-tech gas masks.

The Lal Masjid, dubbed as Operation Silence, was followed by a sate of suicide bombings across Pakistan, killing hundreds, a majority of who were security officials, only to reveal later that many of the suicide bombers had been the students of the Lal Mashie’s fanatic clerics. As the dust settles on the July 2007 Operation Silence, the direct link between madrassas and militancy has already become apparent. If clerics running religious seminaries across Islamabad can stockpile weapons, turn their mosques into hideouts for hard-core militants and engage the highly trained and equally equipped security forces in a fight to the finish for a full week, the activities of their counterparts in more remote areas can only be imagined.

In his address to the nation after the Lal Masjid operation on July 11, 2007, former Pakistan President General Perez Musharraf had declared that establishing the government’s writ had become “inevitable”. Critics, however, ask as to why this was not the priority of his regime from day one despite repeated lofty claims being made by the most trusted American ally in the war on terror. Allowing the Lal Masjid clerics and the students of its affiliated religious seminaries – Jamia Hafsa for girls and Jamia Fareedia – for six long months only emboldened the clerics and furthered the delusion that militants wrapped in the garb of religious seminaries are above the law.

The Lal Masjid episode further proved that even after a lapse of five years from the time Musharraf promised sweeping madrassa reforms, the transformation campaign has largely failed as only a few cosmetic changes could be introduced in the existing madrassa system. When Musharraf had made public his much-touted plans to reform the religious seminaries in Pakistan on January 2002 in a televised address to the nation, he said the move was necessary because some of the private Islamic schools had become breeding grounds for intolerance and hatred. He had unveiled a new strategy, which would see deeni madrassas teach Computer Studies, Mathematics, Science, English alongside their traditional Islamic programmed.

General Musharraf said: “The day of reckoning has come. Do we want Pakistan to become a theocratic state? Do we believe that religious education alone is enough for governance or do we want Pakistan to emerge as a progressive and dynamic Islamic welfare state? My only aim is to help these institutions in overcoming their weaknesses and to provide them with better facilities and more avenues to the poor children at these institutions. These schools are excellent welfare set-ups where the poor get free board and lodge. And let me make it clear that very few deeni madrassas run by hard-line parties promote negative thinking and propagate hatred and violence instead of inculcating tolerance, patience and fraternity”.

It was presumed to be a thoroughly considered and well-thought-out speech signaling an end to the decades-old strategy of Pakistani intelligence establishments to use jehad as an instrument of foreign and defense policy. The speech was supposed to be a response to the September 11, 2001, attack in the US and the December 13, 2001 attack on the Parliament building in India, and spelt out the short and long-term measures envisaged by an enlightened military ruler to tackle the menace of extremism and fundamentalism afflicting the Pakistani society. Yet, his reform campaign was soon exposed due to his one-step forward two-steps backwards approach. His oratory to modernize the religious schools met with little success mainly due to a lack of political will to enforce any of the much-trumpeted policy decisions that were supposed to be taken by his administration to reform the madrassas by bringing them into the educational mainstream. Subsequently, signs of Talibanisation are quite evident in all parts of Pakistan, including the federal capital.

Five years later, however, the Musharraf regime decided to wrap up the madrassa reforms project, after having targeted only a small fraction of some 8,000 madrassas in the country. The Education Ministry was forthright in admitting its failure. “In the last five years, we could reach out to only 507 religious schools”, the madrassa reform project director, Dr Mohammad Hanif conceded in July 2008. The five year madrassa reforms program was launched in the four provinces of Pakistan besides Azad Kashmir (AJK), Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and Federally Administered Northern Areas (FANA) under the banner of “Madaris Reforms Project” (MRP) in 2002-03 whose period expired on June 30, 2007. The aim of the reform project was to teach formal subjects like English, Mathematics, Pakistan Studies, Social Studies and General Science along with the religious education.

The reform program was launched by both the federal as well as the provincial education departments and two separate Project Management Units were set up at federal and provincial levels. The cost of the said project for five years was estimated at Rs5.76 billion to be spent by the government on providing formal subjects, computer, printers, syllabus, library, books, sports items, and salaries of teachers of about 8,000 seminaries in the country. Out of 8,000 religious schools, 4,000 were of primary level, 3,000 of secondary level and 1,000 of higher secondary level. In Sindh alone 1,536 madrassas came under the category of religious seminaries. Out of this number, the Sindh government had chosen 768 for primary levels, 576 for secondary levels and 192 for higher secondary level for reformation program in five years.

However, the Project Management Unit did not show any on ground progress when its tenure expired in year 2006-07, saying there was a lack of coordination and collaboration between the federal government and the provinces on the implementation of the ambitious project. The Management further conceded in its final report to the Pakistani ministry of education that the project was a big failure because hardly Rs 223 million out of the total Rs 5.76 billion funds that the project began with, could be spent in five years. “We failed to develop the capacity to utilize all the funds which were allocated for the madrassa reform project: the total expenditure in five years was less than 2.8 per cent of the total allocation”, the madrassa reform project director, Dr Mohammad Hanif conceded in July 2008 while talking to Monthly Herald.

The project failed despite repeated warnings by many including the International Crisis Group (ICG) that Musharraf should show political will to make the reform project a success. Two years after the madrassa reform campaign was launched, the International Crisis Group (ICG) had stated in its January 2004 report titled, Unfulfilled Promises: Pakistan’s Failure to Tackle Extremism: “General Musharraf’s promise to drive extremism away from madrassas remains unfulfilled. Today, two years after he had promised his sweeping reforms, the jehadi madrassas remain the key breeding ground for radical Islamist ideology and the recruitment centre for terrorist jehadi networks”.

The report referred that in January 2002 Musharraf publicly promised a list of measures to tackle extremism by bringing the madrassas into the mainstream. “The government pledged to firstly register all madrassas so that they adopt a government-approved curriculum by the end of 2002 and secondly to stop their misuse for preaching political and religious intolerance. The international community welcomed Musharraf’s promise to stem jehadi ideology, but two years on, the lack of results is clear. To date, no presidential ordinance to regulate the madrassas has been promulgated. In fact, the government openly assures the religious leaders that it will not interfere in the madrassas affairs. Most madrassas in Pakistan remain unregistered and their sources of funding remain unregulated. The pledge to have government-prescribed curricula at all madrassas similarly remains unfulfilled as no national curriculum has so far been developed.

The ICG report had added: “The government inaction continues to pose a serious threat to domestic, regional and international security. General Musharraf’s priority has never been eradicating Islamic extremism but rather the legitimisation and consolidation of his dictatorial rule. And for that, he depends on the religious right. The failure to curb rising extremism in Pakistan stems directly from the military government’s own unwillingness to act against its political allies among the religious groups. Having co-opted the religious parties to gain constitutional cover for his military rule, Musharraf is highly reliant on the religious right for his regime’s survival. If the US and others continue to restrict their pressure on Musharraf to verbal warnings, the rise of extremism in Pakistan will continue unchecked”, the ICG report concluded.

Three years later, the International Crisis Group had released its 2007 annual report titled “Religious Pakistan: Karachi’s Madrassas and Violent Extremism”. Released on March 28, 2007, the report stated: “More than five years after Musharraf declared his intention to crack down on violent sectarian and jehadi groups and to regulate the network of madrassas on which they depend, his government’s reform programme seems in shambles. Banned sectarian and jehadi groups, being supported by networks of mosques and madrassas, continue to operate openly in Pakistan’s largest city, Karachi, and elsewhere. The international community needs to press Musharraf to fulfill his commitments, in particular to enforce genuine controls on madrassas. It should also shift the focus of its donor aid from helping the government’s ineffectual efforts to reform the religious schools to improving the very weak public school sector”.

According to the report, Karachi’s madrassas which have trained and dispatched jehadi fighters to Afghanistan and held Kashmir, offer a valuable case study of the government failures and consequences for internal stability and regional and international security. “In 2006, the city was rocked by some high-profile acts of political violence. Not all, madrassas in the city are active centres of jehadis, but even those without direct links to violence promote an ideology that provides religious justification for such barbaric attacks. Given the government’s half-hearted reform efforts, these unregulated madrassas contribute to a climate of lawlessness in numerous ways — from land encroachment and criminality to violent clashes between rival militant groups and the use of the pulpit to spread calls for sectarian and jehadi violence. The Pakistan government has not yet taken any of the overdue steps to control religious extremism in the country. Musharraf’s periodic declarations of tough action, given in response to international events and pressure, are invariably followed by retreat. Plans are announced [by the regime]with much fanfare and then abandoned”, the ICG report concluded.

The findings of International Crisis Group had clearly established one thing – that like his predecessors, the priority of Pakistan’s fourth military dictator too wasn’t reforming madrassas and eradicating Islamic extremism, but the legitimization and consolidation of his despotic rule, for which he had made himself dependent upon the religious clergy.

The 7/7 attacks and the Pakistani madrassa connection

Evidence coming to light in the wake of the July 2005 London suicide attacks that killed dozens in the heart of Britain – that three of the four suicide bombers were British-born youth of Pakistani origin who had traveled to Pakistan in November 2004 and visited some of the religious seminaries there – firmly established the Western notion that many of Pakistani madrassas keep functioning as training centers for radical Islamists, despite negating claims by the Musharraf regime.

The 7/7 came as another 9/11 for Pakistan as it was once again standing at crossroads between the military and the mosque. After leaving its footprints in the United States, Afghanistan and India, the Pakistani terror trail had moved to the United Kingdom. As news of the inevitable Pakistan connection flooded the international media after the 7/7, a somewhat embarrassed and equally nervous Pakistani military ruler convened an emergent meeting of the four provincial police chiefs and ordered them to crackdown on extremist elements. Musharraf was definitely puzzled and confused because whatever was happening on the international terror front was negating his oft-repeated claims of having taken effective measures to reform the madrassa system. The General then appeared on the state-run television on July 21, addressed the nation and gave December 2005 deadline to all religious schools to get them registered with the Federal Madaris Board.

Sharing vital administrative decisions to contain extremists, he declared that banned organizations would not be allowed to re-emerge with other names, and if some try so would be dealt with an iron hand. In a subsequent crackdown across Pakistan, the police force arrested hundreds of third and fourth grade suspected militants from various parts of the country. But the question remained – was the crackdown for real? Apparently not a similar crackdown was carried out by the law enforcement agencies after the 9/11 terror attacks and also after Musharraf’s January 2002 speech in which he announced his plans to uproot the extremist mafia and to dismantle its jehadi infrastructure from the country. Indeed, if the number of the jehadis arrested in all these crackdowns is tallied, there should be no extremist left in the country.

Investigations into the 7/7 London suicide attacks revealed that two of the bombers, Shehzad Tanweer and Siddique Khan, met one Osama Nazir, a leader of the outlawed militant organisation, Jaish-e-Mohammad, in Faisalabad during their Pakistan visit. Osama had masterminded the March 2002 attack on a Church in Islamabad’s high security diplomatic enclave, killing five people including a US diplomat’s wife and step-daughter. Osama was also involved in the August 5, 2002 attack on the Murree Christian School, close to Islamabad, in which six Pakistani guards were killed, and the August 9, 2002 attack on the Christian Hospital chapel in Taxila, West of Islamabad. Four Pakistani nurses and one of the attackers were killed, while 26 people were wounded in the Taxila attack.

Osama Nazir’s meeting with Shehzad Tanweer and Siddique Khan was held at a small madrassa in Faisalabad — Jamia Fatahul Raheem, being run by Qari Ahlullah Raheemi, an extremist Muslim cleric considered close to Jaish-e-Mohammad. During their stay at the Jamia, the sources speculate, Siddique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer might have been trained in the handling of explosives by Osama Nazir, who headed a group of trained suicide bombers at that time. They added that following the arrest of Sheikh Ahmed Omar Saeed in Daniel Pearl’s murder case, Osama Nazir had become the right hand man of the Jaish-e-Mohammad chief, Masood Azhar and had helped Amjad Hussain Farooqi, the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi linked al-Qaeda lynchpin in Pakistan, in masterminding two suicide attempts on in December 2003.

According to the intelligence findings, following the killing of Farooqi, Osama Nazir had assumed his position and was working with the two most wanted al-Qaeda external operatives Abu Faraj al-Libbi, the chief operational commander of the al-Qaeda in Pakistan. As the Americans had offered five million dollars for the arrest of either man, Islamabad also announced two million rupees reward for the arrest of Osama Nazir, who had visited Afghanistan several times during the Taliban regime, and Kashmir. Osama Nazir was finally nabbed from Jamia Fatahul Raheem in Faisalabad in November 2004. Osama Nazir disclosed during interrogations that he was hiding at the Jamia Fatahul Raheem because his elder brother, Abdul Shakoor, used to be a teacher there. He further admitted having met Shehzad Tanweer at the Jamia in 2004, before finally leaving for England in February 2005.

Osama further disclosed that Shehzad Tanweer stayed at the religious seminary for a few weeks to get religious and spiritual inspiration from Qari Ahlullah Raheemi. According to him, over 300 Muslims of the Pakistani origin living in the United Kingdom had visited Pakistan so far since the 9/11 terror attacks, received training in several Jaish-e-Mohammad and Harkatul Mujahideen-run training camps, and joined the al-Qaeda suicide squad. Osama revealed that Shehzad had stayed at another extremist Sunni Deobandi madrassa – Jamia Manzurul Islami situated in the Cantonment area of Lahore, and being run by its principal, Pir Saifullah Khalid. While the Pir insisted the school was being run by Ahl-e-Sunnah Wal Jamaat, there were clear indications that it was being managed and financed by a violent Sunni sectarian outfit — Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, considered close to Jaish-e-Mohammad and led by Maulana Masood Azhar.

According to the information provided to the Pakistani agencies by their British counterparts, having landed in Karachi in November 2004, Shehzad Tanweer first went to Faisalabad and then reached Lahore where he got himself enrolled with a local madrassa, Jamia Manzurul Islamia, situated in the cantonment area of the Punjab’s capital. Though Pir Saifullah Khalid, the principal of the religious school simply denies that Shehzad Tanweer had ever visited the madrassa, the British intelligence agencies insist that he even got himself enrolled with the Jamia in mid-December 2004. However, he could not acclamatise himself with the madrassa atmosphere and subsequently abandoned the madrassa after a couple of weeks.

The intelligence agencies further came to know during investigations that it was Mohammad Siddique Khan, the ring leader of the London suicide bombers, who had made Shehzad Tanweer to get himself enrolled with Jamia Manzurul Islamia. He also took him to another madrassa in Faisalabad called Jamia Fatahul Raheem where they had a meeting with Osama Nazir. Sidique, the eldest of the four London bombers, was the likely leader of the attacks. A Briton of Pakistani descent, the British agencies believe, Mohammad Sidique Khan had drawn two of the other attackers, Shehzad Tanweer, 22, and Hasib Hussain, 18, deeper into extremism — through his work as a volunteer in community centres in the Leeds area.

Investigations showed that the September 1, 2005 video message of Sidique Khan had been recorded in Pakistan during the latter’s visit to his homeland in November 2004. The Sidique video was broadcast on September 1, 2005 by al-Jazeera television, through which al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the July 7 attacks in London and threatened more attacks in Europe. It was the first explicit claim of responsibility for the blasts by the terrorist group headed by Osama bin Laden. The broadcast showed pictures of Dr Ayman al-Zawahri and the bomber, Sidique, speaking in English and saying that he would take part in the attacks. In what appeared to be a defence of attacks on civilians, he warned westerners that they would not be safe because of electing governments that commit crimes against humanity.

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