[Mb-civic] Pakistan: Still Schooling Extremists - Samina Ahmed and Andrew Stroehlein - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

Pakistan: Still Schooling Extremists

By Samina Ahmed and Andrew Stroehlein
Sunday, July 17, 2005; Page B07

Although investigations into the terrorist attacks in London are still 
at an early stage, it is already clear that at least one of the bombers 
attended a radical Islamic school, or madrasa, in Pakistan. For those in 
the West who believed President Pervez Musharraf's promises to clean up 
the militant religious schools, it is time to think again.

Shehzad Tanweer, who police say killed six people and himself on the 
Circle Line train near Aldgate station on July 7, recently spent as long 
as four months in a madrasa reportedly run by the avowedly militant 
group Lashkar-i-Taiba in Lahore, Pakistan. The madrasa and the 
organization operate freely despite an official ban on their activity 
since 2002.

<>Immediately after Sept. 11, 2001, the link between Pakistan's 
religious education system and international terrorist organizations 
came under intense scrutiny. Musharraf clearly felt the pressure to be 
seen as doing something, and in January 2002 he gave a televised speech 
promising a series of measures to combat extremism by, among other 
things, bringing all madrasas into the mainstream. Musharraf pledged 
increased oversight of the religious schools through formal 
registration, control of their funding and standardization of their 
curricula.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/15/AR2005071501617.html?nav=hcmodule 

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