07-15-2007, 02:35 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>What's the new root cause? </b>
Wilson John
After the busting of the Bangalore Club, one is forced to concede that even educated, affluent Muslims are taking to terror
Marc Sageman, who was a CIA case officer and a forensic psychiatrist posted in Afghanistan during the late 1980s, carried out an exercise to profile global terrorists a few years ago. <b>He found that contrary to popular belief, the vast majority of the recruits came not from poor, illiterate and broken families but from caring, well-to-do ones. And, 63 per cent of those whom he interviewed had gone to college.</b>
Three-quarters were professionals or semi-professionals - engineers, architects, and civil engineers, mostly scientists. Very few had any background in religion. Osama bin Laden himself is a civil engineer, his deputy Al-Zawahiri a physician. Mohammed Atta, the 9/11 lead hijacker was an architect. As for madarsa-trained, semi-literate fundamentalists, they make up only 13 per cent of the terrorist brigade.
Many in India considered Sageman's findings to be irrelevant here. For long, it was believed that Islamist terrorism was exported by Pakistan and there was hardly any possibility of it taking root outside Jammu & Kashmir.
It was not an incorrect assumption, except that Islamic terrorism began to take roots outside Jammu & Kashmir, almost simultaneously, propelled in large measure by the Indian Government's inability to provide a sense of security to its 140-million Muslim population, which was increasingly threatened by the growth of Hindu radical organisations. A large number of the youngsters who were drawn to terrorism came from impoverished backgrounds, lured by money and dangerously naïve visions of attaining martyrdom. They were the foot soldiers of terror.
<b>But even before Sageman came out with his analysis and the Al Qaeda became a household name, there were indications, howsoever stray, that educated, professional Muslims in India could become enamoured by violent means of protest. The catalyst for such a development was the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) set up by a section of teachers and students of Aligarh Muslim University in 1977. </b>
The group's primary motivation was to counter the rise and growth of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP). But it took upon itself to raise a banner for Islam whenever real and imagined attacks were launched on the religion and its believers in any part of the world. From demonstrations and protests against capitalism and over morality, the group began openly calling for jihad against India after the demolition of the Babri Masjid in December 1992.
<b>Though a large number of the group's supporters were poor students, the leadership was dominated by educated and middle-class Muslims from small and big towns. Two such professionals were Jalees Ansari, a doctor in the Maharashtra Government, and Salim Ansari, an engineer working at the Mazagon Docks. They were involved in the first series of blasts executed as a revenge attack for the demolition of the Babri Masjid.</b> Both were greatly influenced by the group's propaganda that swung between calling for jihad against India and terming the US as "Satan' and Osama bin Laden a saviour of Muslims.
Within the SIMI cadre, there were several professionals who took up the cause both in India and abroad. CAM Basheer, an aeronautical engineer, was one. A former president of SIMI, Basheer is based in West Asia, acting even today as the main recruiter and fund-raiser for terrorist causes. One of Basheer's close associates was Mohammed Altaf, a trained chemical engineer working in Dubai. Altaf was instrumental in recruiting and training several Lashkar-e-Tayyeba (LeT) activists who were involved in July 2003 Ghatkopar blasts.
The Ghatkopar blast, in fact, was the first clear sign of educated and professional Muslims taking to terrorism in significant numbers. Two prime accused in the blast were Mohammed Abdul Mateen Abdul Bashid, a 28-year-old MD in Forensic Sciences from Aurangabad University and Sayed Khawaja Yunus Khawaja Ayub, an Instrumentation Engineer from Parbani near Aurangabad. Both of them were SIMI activists and members of LeT.
<b>Another SIMI professional who turned to jihad was Haroon Rashid, a mechanical engineer working at the Kanpur plant of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited. Rashid, recruited by LeT, was an engineering graduate from AMU, and had even completed a 22-week preparatory course for graduate mechanical engineers in the Singapore Maritime Academy. He was caught in 2005</b>.
<b>The SIMI link is so pervasive that of those arrested in the July 2006 Mumbai and four previous blasts, five were engineers, three doctors, one an MBA, two PhDs and one a doctorate student. Among the Mumbai blast accused were Muzammil Sheikh, a computer engineer working with a well-known IT firm in Bangalore, a Unani doctor Tanvir Ansari and a commerce graduate, Zameer Sheikh</b>.
Though most of them were motivated by local factors like Gujarat riots and large-scale detentions of Muslims after every terrorist incident in the recent past, there was a strong suspicion that developments taking place elsewhere in the world, particularly in Afghanistan, Iraq and Chechnya were influencing the minds and rhetoric of young Muslims in places like Mumbai and Bangalore. The failed London and Glasgow bombers from Bangalore, the first set of Indian global jihadis, have firmly confirmed these fears.
Sageman's Al Qaeda profile is beginning to make sense even in India.
(The writer is Senior Fellow with Observer Research Foundation)
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Wilson John
After the busting of the Bangalore Club, one is forced to concede that even educated, affluent Muslims are taking to terror
Marc Sageman, who was a CIA case officer and a forensic psychiatrist posted in Afghanistan during the late 1980s, carried out an exercise to profile global terrorists a few years ago. <b>He found that contrary to popular belief, the vast majority of the recruits came not from poor, illiterate and broken families but from caring, well-to-do ones. And, 63 per cent of those whom he interviewed had gone to college.</b>
Three-quarters were professionals or semi-professionals - engineers, architects, and civil engineers, mostly scientists. Very few had any background in religion. Osama bin Laden himself is a civil engineer, his deputy Al-Zawahiri a physician. Mohammed Atta, the 9/11 lead hijacker was an architect. As for madarsa-trained, semi-literate fundamentalists, they make up only 13 per cent of the terrorist brigade.
Many in India considered Sageman's findings to be irrelevant here. For long, it was believed that Islamist terrorism was exported by Pakistan and there was hardly any possibility of it taking root outside Jammu & Kashmir.
It was not an incorrect assumption, except that Islamic terrorism began to take roots outside Jammu & Kashmir, almost simultaneously, propelled in large measure by the Indian Government's inability to provide a sense of security to its 140-million Muslim population, which was increasingly threatened by the growth of Hindu radical organisations. A large number of the youngsters who were drawn to terrorism came from impoverished backgrounds, lured by money and dangerously naïve visions of attaining martyrdom. They were the foot soldiers of terror.
<b>But even before Sageman came out with his analysis and the Al Qaeda became a household name, there were indications, howsoever stray, that educated, professional Muslims in India could become enamoured by violent means of protest. The catalyst for such a development was the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) set up by a section of teachers and students of Aligarh Muslim University in 1977. </b>
The group's primary motivation was to counter the rise and growth of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP). But it took upon itself to raise a banner for Islam whenever real and imagined attacks were launched on the religion and its believers in any part of the world. From demonstrations and protests against capitalism and over morality, the group began openly calling for jihad against India after the demolition of the Babri Masjid in December 1992.
<b>Though a large number of the group's supporters were poor students, the leadership was dominated by educated and middle-class Muslims from small and big towns. Two such professionals were Jalees Ansari, a doctor in the Maharashtra Government, and Salim Ansari, an engineer working at the Mazagon Docks. They were involved in the first series of blasts executed as a revenge attack for the demolition of the Babri Masjid.</b> Both were greatly influenced by the group's propaganda that swung between calling for jihad against India and terming the US as "Satan' and Osama bin Laden a saviour of Muslims.
Within the SIMI cadre, there were several professionals who took up the cause both in India and abroad. CAM Basheer, an aeronautical engineer, was one. A former president of SIMI, Basheer is based in West Asia, acting even today as the main recruiter and fund-raiser for terrorist causes. One of Basheer's close associates was Mohammed Altaf, a trained chemical engineer working in Dubai. Altaf was instrumental in recruiting and training several Lashkar-e-Tayyeba (LeT) activists who were involved in July 2003 Ghatkopar blasts.
The Ghatkopar blast, in fact, was the first clear sign of educated and professional Muslims taking to terrorism in significant numbers. Two prime accused in the blast were Mohammed Abdul Mateen Abdul Bashid, a 28-year-old MD in Forensic Sciences from Aurangabad University and Sayed Khawaja Yunus Khawaja Ayub, an Instrumentation Engineer from Parbani near Aurangabad. Both of them were SIMI activists and members of LeT.
<b>Another SIMI professional who turned to jihad was Haroon Rashid, a mechanical engineer working at the Kanpur plant of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited. Rashid, recruited by LeT, was an engineering graduate from AMU, and had even completed a 22-week preparatory course for graduate mechanical engineers in the Singapore Maritime Academy. He was caught in 2005</b>.
<b>The SIMI link is so pervasive that of those arrested in the July 2006 Mumbai and four previous blasts, five were engineers, three doctors, one an MBA, two PhDs and one a doctorate student. Among the Mumbai blast accused were Muzammil Sheikh, a computer engineer working with a well-known IT firm in Bangalore, a Unani doctor Tanvir Ansari and a commerce graduate, Zameer Sheikh</b>.
Though most of them were motivated by local factors like Gujarat riots and large-scale detentions of Muslims after every terrorist incident in the recent past, there was a strong suspicion that developments taking place elsewhere in the world, particularly in Afghanistan, Iraq and Chechnya were influencing the minds and rhetoric of young Muslims in places like Mumbai and Bangalore. The failed London and Glasgow bombers from Bangalore, the first set of Indian global jihadis, have firmly confirmed these fears.
Sageman's Al Qaeda profile is beginning to make sense even in India.
(The writer is Senior Fellow with Observer Research Foundation)
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->