[lit-ideas] Backgrounds of Jihadis

From: Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Mon, 15 May 2006 23:56:49 -0700 (PDT)
There has been an intense concentration in both the
media and academic literature on the role that
madrassas play in producing young men eager to join
the war against the West. Indeed, so thoroughly has
this been discussed and analyzed that we are nearing
the point where it will become common wisdom that if
Washington, London and their allies can close down the
madrassas, we could halt the flow of reinforcements to
the Iraqi and Afghan mujahideen. 

On the basis of at least two factors, it would be wise
to hold off on enshrining as common wisdom the belief
that madrassas are the main producers of nascent
mujahideen. The first lies in some recent academic
work. Marc Sageman, in his excellent book
Understanding Terrorist Networks (Philadelphia, 2004),
and Robert Pape, in his equally outstanding study
Dying to Win (New York, 2005), demonstrate that few of
the non-indigenous Islamist fighters the West is
encountering in the Iraq and Afghan insurgencies are
the products of madrassas. 

Both Sageman and Pape show that these fighters are,
more often than not, young men educated in areas
beyond the strictly religious studies that dominate
the madrassas' curriculum. Many have studied sciences
and engineering and hail from stable, middle-class
families. In short, Sageman, Pape and a few other
analysts have concluded after extensive research and
statistical study that the largest number of foreign
fighters who travel to participate in the insurgencies
in Iraq and Afghanistan are not madrassa graduates.
The exception to this conclusion is Pakistan, where it
seems likely that madrassas produce the majority of
Pakistanis who join the Afghan insurgency. 

The second factor that argues against accepting that
madrassas are the main source of the insurgencies'
reinforcements requires a bit of historical
background. During the Afghan jihad against the Soviet
Union (1979-89), the Afghans played the overwhelming
role in defeating the Red Army. Non-indigenous Muslims
did, of course, travel to Afghanistan to assist the
Afghans. Their numbers grew as the war wore on, and
among the foreign fighters were Osama bin Laden, Ayman
al-Zawahiri, Ibn Khattab, Mustafa Hamza and many
others who later helped to form al-Qaeda and other
like-minded organizations. Others simply returned to
their homes in Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia and
began to attack their national governments. 

Where did the non-indigenous Muslim fighters come from
during the Afghan jihad? Their travel to the
battlefield was certainly facilitated by the Muslim
Brotherhood and other Islamist organizations - and
some members of those groups, such as Sheikh Abdullah
Azzam and the Saudi Wael Julaidan, joined the fight -
as well as by some wealthy Muslim individuals and Arab
governments. It is well known, for example, that the
bin Laden family business helped aspiring mujahideen
travel to Afghanistan and that Riyadh ordered Saudia,
its international airline, to offer reduced-fare
"jihad" tickets to young men on their way to
Afghanistan. 

Many of these non-Afghan Muslim mujahideen came out of
the prisons of Arab states. The West often forgets
that Arab prisons are built not only to house
criminals but to confine ideological opponents of the
regime. Thus the prisons are generally full to
overflowing with Islamic militants who, for example,
oppose the brutality of Egyptian President Hosni
Mubarak's regime or the al-Sauds' greed, corruption
and opulence in Saudi Arabia. Incarcerating these
militants helps the regimes maintain societal control.
Their detention, however, also has proved to increase
their Islamic militancy, because the extremist inmates
tend to congregate and to be easy targets for
instruction by jailed radical Islamic scholars and
clerics, both of which breed a sense of fraternity. 

Al-Qaeda deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri emerged much
more militant after his incarceration and torture in
post-Anwar Sadat Egypt, as did Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
after his imprisonment in Jordan and his instruction
by the renowned Salafi scholar Abu Muhammad
al-Maqdisi. 

Faced with a large population of young,
Islamic-extremist prisoners during the Afghan jihad,
governments across the Arab world found a release
valve for radical religious pressures in their
societies by freeing ideological prisoners on the
condition that they would go to fight the atheist
Soviets in Afghanistan. Many such prisoners agreed and
were released by regimes that hoped they would go to
Afghanistan, kill some infidels and be killed in the
process. 

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HE16Ak02.html

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[lit-ideas] Backgrounds of Jihadis

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