Counter-Terrorism: Where The Bad Boys Come From
23rd June 2016
In 2007 Pakistan announced a plan to register and regulate the 13,000 madrassas (religious schools) operating within its borders. Most agreed to be registered but the 500 or so that resisted contained most of those that were heavily into training Islamic radicals and terrorists. Religious schools are popular because they are free, and most teach secular subjects as well. Only about half of Pakistanis are literate, and most parents realize that education is a way out of poverty. The government quietly dropped the 2007 registration program because of political pressure from Islamic conservative political parties and more ominous threats from the ISI (Pakistani CIA).
The registration plan was announced by a military government because even the generals were appalled at the growing threat from Islamic terrorists based in Pakistan. This was the result of realization that the main source of Pakistani Islamic terrorists was from these religious schools, or at least some of them.