Abu Bakar University: madrassa linked to SEAsia terrorism

KARACHI, Sept 25 (AFP) - The Abu Bakar University, where police say they have uncovered a sleeper cell of the Southeast Asian terror group Jemaah Islamiyah, is typical of the madrassas (religious schools) Pakistan is trying to reform.

Seven Indonesian and Malaysian members of what security officials say was a 19-man cell, including the brother of suspected al-Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiyah kingpin Hambali, were students at Abu Bakar.

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The university teaches only the Koran, Sunnah (sayings of the Prophet), Islamic literature and Arabic, all exclusively in Arabic language. There is no science, mathematics or English language in the curriculum.

Half of the 25-year-old school's 500 students are from overseas, mainly from Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand.

Since early last year, Pakistan has been trying to regulate its 10,000 madrassas, drafting a law which requires them to broaden their curricula, register, and cease foreign funding.

The draft law was watered down under pressure from powerful Islamic parties last year, but even its diluted form has still not been passed.

The move to regulate the madrassas is part of President Pervez Musharraf's crackdown on Muslim extremists following Pakistan's entry into the war on terrorism after the September 2001 terror attacks in the United States.

Afghanistan's fundamentalist Taliban regime, which harboured bin Laden and al-Qaeda, drew thousands of recruits and fighters from Pakistan's madrassas.

With many of the seminaries considered a breeding ground for extremism, Pakistan's intelligence agencies have been watching them closely as they hunt al-Qaeda and Taliban fugitives.

But this month is the first time Southeast Asian students have emerged on the spy agencies' watchlists. Yemenis, Egyptians and other Arab and North Africans have previously been the main targets.

"This is the first time since the war on terror started that students of these countries are on our monitoring list," a Karachi-based intelligence official, who asked to remain anonymous, told AFP.

Hambali's brother had been studying at Abu Bakar for four years under the name Abdul Hadi, according to a fellow student.

The young Indonesian was "friendly, softly spoken, and diligent," the student told AFP, asking not to be named.

On September 1 he was called by police for questioning, and never came back.

An Islamabad-based security official said Gunawan was arrested in the first week of September.

Last Saturday police and intelligence agents showed up again at the school and took away another Indonesian and five Malaysians.

Raids on at least four other madrassas on Saturday and Monday netted 12 more Malaysian and Indonesian students.

Hambali, Southeast Asia's most wanted man until his capture in Thailand on August 11, is considered al-Qaeda's pointman in Asia and operations chief of JI, which is blamed for the Bali bombings and a raft of other deadly attacks in Southeast Asia.

The Abu Bakar University lies in eastern Karachi's crowded Gulshan-e-Iqbal district, where madrassas have mushroomed in recent years.

Staff said the campus never encouraged militancy.

"We don't teach extremism, only purely religious education according to Koranic teaching," Maulana Mohammad Aaish Tahir, a senior cleric at the school, told AFP.

"We only try to produce good Muslims and not terrorists," he said.

"We only teach in Arabic and have qualified religious scholars. ... We don't have science or mathematics."

Less than two kilometers (1.2 miles) away lies the Darasitul Islamia madrassa, where six Malaysian students were arrested Saturday, the same day Kashmiri militant chief Hafiz Saeed, former head of the outlawed Lashkar-e-Taiba group, was giving a sermon there.

The school is run by Lashkar-e-Taiba's political wing Jamaat-ud Dawa, led by Saeed. He travels Pakistan exhorting followers to wage jihad (holy war) against Indian forces in disputed Kashmir.

Saeed was known to often stay at the school. Staff and students refused to talk to journalists.

Jamaat-ud Dawa said the arrested students had no connection with terrorism.

"They were all simple students who were known for their good behavior," spokesman Yahya Mujahid told AFP.

mz/bc/pch

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