Schools for holy warriors may face lesson of their own

by ZAHID HUSSAIN in Islamabad
South China Morning Post

Darul-Uloom-Haqqania is one of the biggest Islamic religious schools in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province.

Run by Maulana Samiul Haq, a former senator, the school - or madrassa as such institutions are known - has for the past few years been a main centre for recruitment of holy warriors fighting in Afghanistan and Kashmir.

A large number of Afghan Taleban fighters belong to the Darul-Uloom-Haqqania.

About 1,500km away in Karachi, there is another leading madrassa known as Darul Uloom Islamia.

Housed in a huge red mosque in the centre of the city, the school draws students from Afghanistan, Central Asia, Malaysia and Chechnya.

"Half of the 40 members of the committee which rules the Taleban-administered Afghanistan have studied here," said the school administrator.

Many of those who are fighting in Chechnya against the Russian forces are graduates of the madrassa. It is also a stronghold of a Sunni sectarian militant organisation, Sipah-e-Sahaba.

These two are not only the premier seats of religious learning in Pakistan, but also the centres of radical international Islamic movements.

For more than 10 years, Pakistan has remained plagued by the rise of sectarian violence and religiously motivated terrorism and the madrassas, which mushroomed in the 1980s during the war in Afghanistan, are largely blamed.

The spillover of Islamic militancy to other countries has caused serious international concern and Islamabad faces growing pressure from the the West to curb the centres, which are allegedly involved in training extremist groups.

It is estimated there are more than 10,000 madrassas in Pakistan, with a total of more than one million students.

"A large number of these institutions are believed to be centres for training of militants and promoting terrorism," the Newsline magazine said.

Political expediency and fear of a backlash have prevented successive Pakistani governments from clamping down on such institutions. But under growing pressure from the US, the present military administration has promised to check the activities of the madrassas.

The National Security Council, the country's supreme administrative body, last week set up a committee to investigate allegations of terrorism made against the religious schools and recommend steps to rein the schools in.

"The Government, however, maintains that only a handful of madrassas are involved in terrorism," a senior official said.