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| India-Pakistan |
| Islamic State recruiting trained professionals from Pakistan |
| 2016-03-03 |
| [DAWN] Trying to lure him into the murderous Moslem Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not reallyMoslems.... (IS) group, the would-be recruiter told Pak journalist Hasan Abdullah, "Brother, you could be such an asset to the Ummah"-- the Islamic community. Abdullah replied that he was enjoying life and had no plans to join the murderous Moslems. "The enjoyment of this life is short-lived. You should work for the Akhira" -- the afterlife, the recruiter pressed. IS had its eye on Abdullah not because he adheres to any murderous Moslem ideology but because, as a journalist, the group believed he could be a boon to its propaganda machine, Abdullah told The News Agency that Dare Not be Named, recounting his meeting with the recruiter. His encounter was a sign of how the IS is looking for sophisticated skills as it builds its foothold in new territory: Pakistain. The Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... police’s top counter terrorism official, Raja Umer Khitab, warns that IS has great potential to grow in Pakistain. IS first announced its presence in the country with a bloody attack in May in Karachi in which gunnies boarded a bus, ordered them to bow their heads, then opened fire, killing 45. The gunnies left behind a tattered piece of paper proclaiming, "Beware ... We have entered the battlefield for retribution and the implementation of Shariah." The number of IS loyalists in Pakistain is not known. Government officials only recently admitted that they have a presence and insist loyalists here have no known operational links to the IS leadership in Iraq and Syria. Still, in one of the first warnings by an official about IS, intelligence chief Aftab Sultan told a Senate committee earlier this month that hundreds of Paks have gone to fight in Syria, and some are now coming home to Pakistain to recruit. One way IS holy warriors are trying to recruit and build is through women. One academy for women in Karachi’s Baloch Colony neighborhood recruited women by playing IS videos in the classrooms, Khitab told the AP. The 20 female students then reached out to middle-class and wealthy Karachi women, urging them to donate their religious tithes to the IS cause of establishing a caliphate. Several women were detained, including the wife of a suspected IS operative, and were released after questioning, Khitab said. IS recruiters have been stalking university campuses. For example, the suspected criminal mastermind in the bus attack, Saad Aziz, was a graduate of the US-funded Institute of Business Administration in Karachi. A professor at the Institute, Huma Baqai, said there are radicalised professors teaching in some of the country’s top universities. They "are using the classrooms to mold (students’) minds," she said. "There is no scrutiny in what happens in the classroom." An intelligence official told the AP that security officials have interrogated several university professors suspected of supporting IS and trying to recruit students. "Finding people who are willing to strap on a boom jacket and blow themselves up is easy. There are hundreds, thousands," said Abdullah, the journalist. But the educated are a bigger prize. He said he knows two other journalists whom IS tried to enlist. Abdullah said IS probably sought him because he was known from his work writing on extremism in the region and has met many holy warriors personally. |
| Posted by:Fred |