Fuelled by the US invasion of Iraq and the promise of paradise after martyrdom, thousands of impoverished Pakistani youths are enrolling for ’jehad’ in places like Jammu and Kashmir and Afghanistan, reports OneWorld.net. According to a slew of separatist publications, between January and June alone, Islamic groups recruited approximately 7,000 men aged between 18 and 25 years. "Two of the largest separatist outfits — Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed — claim to have recruited 3,350 and 2,235 boys respectively in this period," the ministry official said.
| The usual suspects, gobbling up the poor and the stoopid to turn them into cannon fodder. And people bitch about exploitation by Nike and Gap? |
Jehadi groups are finding the Pakistani environment particularly receptive after the U.S. attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq. They use publications, websites, prayer leaders, cassettes, CDs, and souvenirs like badges and T-shirts to lure recruits.
| And tin whistles and candy and gum and cheese and bowls of milk... |
For his part, Pakistan Interior Minister Syed Faisal Saleh Hayat maintains: "The government is monitoring the activities of jehadi groups. But we cannot proceed against them without any evidence. The government also can’t ban them unless they are involved in anti-state activities."
| They've already banned them. They put on false noses and moustaches and came back. And you don't find proof if you never look for it... |
A member of a prominent separatist group said the vast majority of boys who joined radical Islamists were runaways. Sixty percent were school dropouts.
| That's why every time they toss a grenade it bounces off its intended target and takes out a dozen bystanders — they recruit society's losers... |
With the Americans in the neighbourhood, Islamists are having a field day. "The US bombing of Afghanistan and Iraq is an attack on the Muslim fraternity. You will go to hell if you do not wage jehad against the US," thundered Lashker-e-Taiba chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed publicly recently. "Send your boys to us. We will train them and send them to Kashmir for jehad," screamed a CD message from Saeed.
| "We'll send anything left of them back to you after they're dead..." |
Labourer Ahsan Mehmood, a father of eight, gave two of his sons to jehad last month. "It is better for them to die for a cause and embrace martyrdom before I kill them due to hunger," said he in justification of the decision.
| I suppose that statement makes sense. Just not a lot of sense. To me, it'd be even better for them to get some sort of a skill and make something of themselves. But I guess doinking 72 virgins can be considered a skill... |
Prayer leaders and schoolteachers are often jehad’s local agents. Said Karim Khan, a vegetable seller from Gujranwala in Punjab province: "My 18-year-old son joined Lashker-e-Taiba because he was influenced by his teacher’s lectures." Last month, Khan was one of eight separatists shot dead in Kashmir. That’s the kind of fate awaiting many Pakistani separatists — whether they are fighting the Americans in Afghanistan or Indians in Kashmir. The Lashkar-e-Taiba website said around 800 youths were killed fighting the Indian Army last year.
| It's their job to be killed, pawns in games played by Hafiz Saeed and his ISI backers... |
Though the government banned outfits like the Lashker-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed, Al-Badr and Harkatul Mujahideen, they have re-surfaced with new names. Although the government denies it, jehadi outfits have reportedly set up offices in residential areas of Pakistan cities, from where they approach the public. "Recruitment takes place under the government’s patronage. The same jehadi leaders are heading the same banned jehadi outfits under new names. The government is trying to fool the public and the Americans by pretending to have distanced itself from the jehadis," alleges senior journalist M Ziauddin.
| We knew that. The question is, what are we going to do about it? At this stage, nothing — Pak repesents both a problem (defined above) and a resource. When it stops being more valuable as a resource than it is irritating as a problem, we should take care of the problem. I'm personally in favor of a killing spree that starts with Qazi and works down. The unfortunate demises of about 3000 people — at least half of them clerics, and not all of them previously identified as Bad Guys — would bring peace and possibly even prosperity to that part of the world for the next couple hundred years. But what's required is the sort of thing that'll make us feel very bad about ourselves when it's all over, so we'll keep putting it off for years, until there's another Twin Towers atrocity, and maybe even until the one after that. Such are the disadvantages of being civilized. |
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