Militant Recruitment in Pakistan: A New Look at the Militancy-Madrasah Connection

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1 asia policy, nmber 4 (jly 2007), Militant Recritment in Pakistan: A New Look at the Militancy-Madrasah Connection C. Christine Fair C. Christine Fair is a senior research associate in the Center for Conflict Analysis and Prevention at the United States Institte of Peace (USIP), where she specializes in Soth Asian political and military affairs. She is available at <cfair@sip.org>. Note This presentation is drawn from a forthcoming monograph by the athor that explores the connections between edcation and militancy in Pakistan, to be pblished by USIP Press in late The athor is gratefl to Vali Nasr, as well as to the two anonymos reviewers who provided very sefl feedback on earlier versions of this draft. The views expressed here do not represent those of the United States Institte of Peace. keywords: pakistan; terrorism; militancy; madaris;.s. policy The National Brea of Asian Research, Seattle, Washington

2 asia policy exective smmary This stdy presents a new framework to exposit the connections between Pakistan s religios schools (madaris) and militancy in Pakistan and beyond. main argment Contrary to poplar belief, madrasah stdents are not all poor and madaris are not categorically tied to militancy. Madaris along with mosqes and pblic proselytizing events (tabligh) are, however, gathering places where militant grops, religios ideologes, and potential recrits can interact. Religios leaders of some madaris isse edicts (fatwas) that jstify the se of violence, and a small nmber of madaris are sed for militant training. Limited evidence sggests that madrasah stdents more strongly spport jihad than those of pblic or private schools bt pblic school stdents, who comprise 70% of Pakistan s enrolled stdents, also have high levels of spport for violence. policy implications With respect to intelligence collection and analysis, asking whether or not madaris prodce militants is the wrong qestion. Qerying the edcational and other characteristics of key tanzeem (militant grop) operatives, while keeping in mind the impacts of grop efforts to select for desired skills and capabilities, will inform conterterrorism efforts more effectively. A nmber of implications are pertinent to U.S. policy toward Pakistan and the threat posed by Pakistan-based terrorism to U.S. interests: - The U.S. can act nilaterally against known militant madaris only at great cost to other objectives (e.g., Msharraf s safety); Pakistan will cooperate in this regard only with varying degrees of commitment, limited capability, and diminished respect for rle of law and hman rights. - Pakistan s entire edcation system reqires comprehensive reform; sch reform may be beyond Pakistan s capability and there may be only limited scope for the United States to help. Increased participation by mltinational organizations and demand for accontability by all partners are reqired to complete this danting task. The costs of failre are too high to contenance. - Becase efforts to restrict the spply of terrorism have rapidly diminishing margins of retrn, interventions to redce demand for terrorism are needed. - Madaris merit continal observation as they may contribte both to the demand for terrorism and to the limited spply of militants. For the same reasons, Pakistan s pblic school sector deserves mch more attention than it crrently enjoys.

3 fair militant recritment in pakistan Ever since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Pakistan s madaris (pl. of madrasah or seminary ) have attracted the attention of policymakers in the United States and elsewhere. Pakistan s madaris are posited both to be incbators of militants in Pakistan and to be responsible for creating commnities of spport for militancy in Pakistan, Soth Asia, and beyond. Conseqently, the United States and other contries have strongly encoraged Pakistan s president, General Pervez Msharraf, to reform these instittions and close down those madaris for which there is evidence of links to militant grops, or tanzeems as they are known in Pakistan. Consonant with the perceived threat posed by these religios schools, the poplar, academic, and policy literatres on Pakistan s madaris have expanded. These analyses have prodced contradictory findings. While several prominent athors have arged that madaris are critical to militant prodction in the region and beyond, others have cast dobt pon these claims, noting that few known militants have had madrasah backgronds. 2 This essay arges that the extant literatre likely has overestimated some risks associated with Pakistan s seminaries while nderestimating or even failing to identify more empirically spportable threats associated with Pakistan s edcational landscape. This disparity has arisen in part becase analysts have tended to ask the wrong qestions, focsing narrowly pon the dispted connections between madaris and militancy and failing to discriminate adeqately across different militant organizations, which have their own distinct personnel reqirements. This essay seeks to reframe the policy debate srronding the role of madaris in the prodction of militants in Pakistan and elsewhere. The main argment is that analysts mst examine the hman capital reqirements of specific tanzeems, taking into consideration the objectives, tactics, theatres, and qality of terror prodced, as well as the preferred target recritment market of each particlar grop in qestion. Necessarily, this implies that some grops pose more risks than others, based on the scope of their operations, ties with other organizations (e.g., al Qaeda, Taliban), reach (local See Abigail Ctler and Saleem Ali, Madrassah Reform Is Key to Terror War, Christian Science Monitor, Jne 27, 2005; Pakistan: Madrassahs, Extremism and the Military, The International Crisis Grop (ICG) Asia Report, no. 36, Jly 29, 2002; Jessica Stern, Pakistan s Jihad Cltre, Foreign Affairs 79, no. 6 (2000): ; Jessica Stern, Meeting with the Mj, Blletin of the Atomic Scientists 57, no. 1 (Janary/Febrary 2001): 42 50; and Peter Singer, Pakistan s Madrassahs: Ensring a System of Edcation Not Jihad, Brookings Instittion Analysis Paper, no. 14, November See Peter Bergen and Swati Pandey, The Madrasa Scapegoat, The Washington Qarterly 29, no. 2 (Spring 2006): ; Christopher Candland, Religios Edcation and Violence in Pakistan, in Pakistan 2005, ed. Charles H. Kennedy and Cynthia Botterton (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), ; and Alexander Evans, Understanding Madrasahs, Foreign Affairs 85, no. 1 (Janary/Febrary 2006), [ 109 ]

4 asia policy vs. global), and lethality of operations prsed (sicide terrorism vs. bazaar attacks). Sch an analytical approach is more agile and affords more nanced conclsions abot the connections between edcation and militancy and abot concomitant policy implications. Sch an approach does not seek static answers to the madrasah qestion; rather, this approach permits analysis to evolve as grops develop their objectives, targets, theatres, and indeed the qality of terror that they can perpetrate. This approach permits the following conclsions. First, grops that operate in more challenging terrains, assail hard targets, or attack targets that are either high-vale or for which opportnity costs of failre are high are less likely to se militants that are exclsively madrasah trained than are grops that operate in easier areas of operation and engage either soft targets or targets with low opportnity costs of failre. Second, considering the prospect that madrasah edcation cold confer some operational benefits as in sectarian grops madrasah gradates may be preferred in some operations. In other words, madrasah gradates may be sitable for some kinds of attacks bt not for others. Third, even if madrasah stdents are more inclined towards jihad, a given militant grop may not select madrasah stdents if the grop has other, more desirable candidates to recrit. Militant grops cold become more dependent pon madrassah stdents over time if militant recritment standards change or if the militant recritment market changes. Forth, madaris prodce religios entrepreners who jstify violence and contribte to commnities of spport. Madrasah gradates also may bild families that spport some kinds of violence and may be the schools of choice for sch families. In sm, this analytical framework sggests that madaris merit continal observation as they may contribte both to the demand for terrorism and to the limited spply of militants. For the same reasons, Pakistan s pblic school sector deserves mch more attention, however, than that sector crrently enjoys. The remainder of this essay is organized as follows. pp reviews the literatre, laying ot the varios claims abot madrasah enrollments, nmbers of madaris, madrasah stdents socioeconomic backgronds, and finally and perhaps most importantly reviews the literatre arging for and against the connections between militancy and madaris pp looks very careflly at the varios analyses of the presence (or lack thereof) of madrasah prodcts in militant grops pp lays ot a new analytical framework drawing from this complex and mltidisciplinary literatre [ 110 ]

5 fair militant recritment in pakistan pp revisits the connections between madaris and militancy throgh this new analytical optic pp draws ot the policy implications of this approach the great madrasah debates As noted above, despite the proliferation of stdies of Pakistan s madaris, many important qestions persist. First, scholars have vigorosly disagreed abot the nmber of madaris and the penetration of madaris in the edcational market. In the poplar press, an array of reports sggested that anywhere from 500,000 to two million children are enrolled in Pakistan s madaris, withot any clarity abot the level, intensity, or dration of madrasah attendance. The most inflential yet still incorrect acconting of the penetration of madaris in the edcational market was offered by the International Crisis Grop (ICG) in Relying pon interview data to obtain estimates of madrasah stdents, the ICG claimed that some one-third of all stdents in Pakistan attend madaris; however, those estimates were derived from an erroneos calclation that, when corrected, yields estimates that vary from 4 7%. This miscalclation is regrettable becase the report is otherwise very illminating. In 2005 Tahir Andrabi, Jishn Das, Asim Khwaja, and Tristan Zajonc pblished a stdy (hereafter referred to as the Andrabi stdy) that employed For a comprehensive inventory of the varios poplar press acconts of madrasah enrollments, see Tahir Andrabi, Jishn Das, Asim Khwaja, and Tristan Zajonc, Religios School Enrollment in Pakistan: A Look at the Data, John F. Kennedy School of Government Working Paper, no. RWP05-024, March 2005; and Wadad Kadi and Victor Billeh, eds., Islam and Edcation Myths and Trths, special isse, Comparative Edcation Review 50, no. 3, Agst Also see Saeed Shafqat, From Official Islam to Islamism: The Rise of Daawa-l-Irshad and Lashkar-e-Taiba, in Pakistan: Nationalism Withot a Nation? ed. Christophe Jaffrelot (London: Zed Books, 2002/2004). Shafqat reports that p to two million stdents attend madaris in Pakistan. Pakistan: Madrassahs. In that report, the athors claimed that one-third of stdents attend madaris, having obtained this figre by dividing the total nmber of stdents attending madaris (estimated to be between 1 and 1.7 million children, as the minister for religios affairs, Dr. Mahmood Ahmed Ghazi, reported to the ICG) by the total nmber of all stdents enrolled (obtained by adding the total nmber of stdents enrolled in primary schools, as the Ministry of Finance reported in its 2002 Economic Srvey, and the total nmber of madrasah stdents). The ICG erroneosly sed million as the total nmber of children enrolled in primary schools. Taken together [(1)/( )= 0.33], these figres sggest that at least 33% of all children of primary school age attend madaris. The ICG shold have sed million for the nmber of children enrolled in primary school. Correcting this figre, one obtains only 4.7% [(1)/( )= 0.04] as the lower bond. Using 1.7 million as the enrollment for madaris sggests that 7% are enrolled in madaris as the pper bond. The ICG amended the report in Jly 2005 only after pblication of the Andrabi et al. stdy of 2005, which first identified this sorce of error. Frthermore, it is far from obvios that this is the correct method to calclate madrasah penetration. This math prespposes that madrasah edcation is comparable only to primary-level edcation, an assmption that may not be jstified. [ 111 ]

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