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Pakistan: Despite Reform Plan, Few Changes Seen at Most Radical Madrassahs

(Radio Free Europe) Ron Synovitz - A recent EU report says as many as 30% of the Taliban's fighters attended madrassahs like Dar ul-Uloom Islamia. Dar ul-Uloom leader and Pakistani parliament member Maulana Gouhar Shah told Britain's Daily Telegraph last week that his madrassah sent volunteers to fight on the side of the Taliban against U.S. forces in Afghanistan in late 2001 and that his madrassah has not changed its fundamentalist program since 9/11. Arnaud de Borchgrave, director of the Transnational Threats Initiative at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, says, "To this very day now, you have madrassahs that have spread all over Pakistan which were originally encouraged by the U.S. and Saudi Arabia." "They are churning out hundreds of thousands of kids - about an estimated 700,000 this year from about 10,000 madrassahs - all still paid for by the Wahhabi clergy in Saudi Arabia to the tune of about $300 million a year.
2004-02-26 00:00:00
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