.

Before I was detained by Yemeni intelligence, on the supposition of being an Israeli spy, and before I spoke with senior Pakistani officials who admitted to funding the Taliban, I met an unassuming Afghan who forever changed the way I thought about terrorist recruitment and extremism. Rahmat Muhammad is the proud father of 13 children, happy husband to two wives, and the only reason girls receive an education in the refugee camp of Akora, located in the notorious Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province in Pakistan. Akora was initially founded in the 1980s, a product of the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan, and the first Council of Elders in the camp refused to give its children even the most basic instruction, arguing that education would make them “bad Muslims.” As the eldest, and most conservative, members of the Council began to die off, the idea of providing an education to male children became less contentious, and the curriculum expanded from Quranic memorization and Islam classes to later include reading, writing, math, and a few extracurricular activities. Logically, the next step seemed to be expanding this access to education to the girls in the camp, but when Rahmat, then a member of the Council, suggested it, he was met with stiff resistance and threatened with expulsion.

Undaunted, he visited Afghanistan, sold the house he kept there, and used the proceeds to build Akora’s first school for girls. Since no women in the camp knew how to read or write, he was forced to hire Pakistani female teachers, many of whom worked for free for the first couple of years, motivated only by their commitment to these girls’ education. Today, the school is bustling with over 600 female students, is widely accepted by the community, and has become part of the fabric of society. As Rahmat said to me, “Even the fathers and grandfathers who before opposed female education now see the benefits of having their daughters know how to read and write!”

What he was most excited about, however, was what was likely to happen once these families began to return to Afghanistan. “Progress will continue!” he exulted. Now that his community had seen the tangible benefits of female education, these same women could host classes in their homes and start schools upon their return to Afghanistan--precisely the behavior the Taliban has fought so viciously against since the early 1990s.

But I had not traveled to Peshawar, Pakistan (and later Yemen and the Somali border) to study education; rather, as part of my graduate school research I was interested in learning more about terrorism recruitment and how communities radicalize. Back in Cambridge, Massachusetts though, most of the literature on the subject argued that a lack of economic opportunities, freedom of movement, and/or an Islamic education were the main drivers of radicalization and the preconditions for recruitment into extremist organizations. What I found throughout my travels, however, and the single unified message that emerged from conversations with hundreds of people, was that these were secondary factors. The most successful strategy against radicalization was access to a well-rounded education, even if it was of mediocre quality. By targeting 15-year-old Malala Yousafzai, and threatening to shoot her again if she survived the first attack, the Taliban bolstered this argument and identified to the world their biggest enemy: not a bullet, not the U.S. military presence, not even Hamid Karzai’s government, but instead female education. As Foreign Policy CEO David Rothkopf recently wrote, “Malala (has)… done more to change this part of the world for the better than our trillions and our sacrifices and the collective armed forces of our various alliances could hope to muster.”

In order to operate successfully, terrorist organizations need both individuals willing to plan and carry out attacks as well as communities to harbor them. Though many of the most notorious terrorists are highly educated (al-Shabaab’s Abu Mansoor al-Amriki, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’s Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, and al-Qaeda’s Ayman al-Zawahiri, for example), the vast majority of the Taliban’s, AQAP’s, and al-Shabaab’s foot soldiers are not. Indeed, by providing access to a well-rounded education to those communities that are most at-risk of radicalizing, the U.S. can make it significantly less likely that these communities will accept extremist ideas and those organizations that espouse them. This is especially true when, as they did in Akora, they see the tangible benefits of education for women (an idea that is rejected by virtually all extremist organizations). It is rare to find an occurrence where American values and interests dovetail as clearly as they do in this case. By supporting organizations that provide access to a well-rounded education, the U.S. can address both humanitarian concerns and reduce the space in which terrorist organizations can operate, as more and more communities reject their presence and their rhetoric.

Though this is only one of many stories, the larger point it makes is key to the ongoing struggle for the minds of the people at risk of radicalization, both in Pakistan and well beyond its borders. The Arab Spring has brought this struggle to the forefront, and accelerated the funding by Wahhabist and extremist groups in the region of schools, mosques, and lectures. These educational programs, filled with vitriol and misogyny, not only threaten longer term U.S. interests in the region, but also hope to stifle the dreams of millions of women who deserve the opportunity to be educated and break free from the suffocating grasp of extremism.

Francisco Martin-Rayo is the author of “Winning the Minds: Travels through the terrorist recruiting grounds of Yemen, Pakistan, and the Somali border,” and the founder of the Winning the Minds Foundation. He is a counter-radicalization and public diplomacy expert whose work has been published by Foreign Policy and Harvard University. Follow him @fmrsolis or email him at Francisco@winningtheminds.org.

DoD photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Chad J. McNeeley/Released.

The views presented in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent the views of any other organization.

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From Yemen to Pakistan – One Common Message of Hope

November 4, 2012

Before I was detained by Yemeni intelligence, on the supposition of being an Israeli spy, and before I spoke with senior Pakistani officials who admitted to funding the Taliban, I met an unassuming Afghan who forever changed the way I thought about terrorist recruitment and extremism. Rahmat Muhammad is the proud father of 13 children, happy husband to two wives, and the only reason girls receive an education in the refugee camp of Akora, located in the notorious Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province in Pakistan. Akora was initially founded in the 1980s, a product of the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan, and the first Council of Elders in the camp refused to give its children even the most basic instruction, arguing that education would make them “bad Muslims.” As the eldest, and most conservative, members of the Council began to die off, the idea of providing an education to male children became less contentious, and the curriculum expanded from Quranic memorization and Islam classes to later include reading, writing, math, and a few extracurricular activities. Logically, the next step seemed to be expanding this access to education to the girls in the camp, but when Rahmat, then a member of the Council, suggested it, he was met with stiff resistance and threatened with expulsion.

Undaunted, he visited Afghanistan, sold the house he kept there, and used the proceeds to build Akora’s first school for girls. Since no women in the camp knew how to read or write, he was forced to hire Pakistani female teachers, many of whom worked for free for the first couple of years, motivated only by their commitment to these girls’ education. Today, the school is bustling with over 600 female students, is widely accepted by the community, and has become part of the fabric of society. As Rahmat said to me, “Even the fathers and grandfathers who before opposed female education now see the benefits of having their daughters know how to read and write!”

What he was most excited about, however, was what was likely to happen once these families began to return to Afghanistan. “Progress will continue!” he exulted. Now that his community had seen the tangible benefits of female education, these same women could host classes in their homes and start schools upon their return to Afghanistan--precisely the behavior the Taliban has fought so viciously against since the early 1990s.

But I had not traveled to Peshawar, Pakistan (and later Yemen and the Somali border) to study education; rather, as part of my graduate school research I was interested in learning more about terrorism recruitment and how communities radicalize. Back in Cambridge, Massachusetts though, most of the literature on the subject argued that a lack of economic opportunities, freedom of movement, and/or an Islamic education were the main drivers of radicalization and the preconditions for recruitment into extremist organizations. What I found throughout my travels, however, and the single unified message that emerged from conversations with hundreds of people, was that these were secondary factors. The most successful strategy against radicalization was access to a well-rounded education, even if it was of mediocre quality. By targeting 15-year-old Malala Yousafzai, and threatening to shoot her again if she survived the first attack, the Taliban bolstered this argument and identified to the world their biggest enemy: not a bullet, not the U.S. military presence, not even Hamid Karzai’s government, but instead female education. As Foreign Policy CEO David Rothkopf recently wrote, “Malala (has)… done more to change this part of the world for the better than our trillions and our sacrifices and the collective armed forces of our various alliances could hope to muster.”

In order to operate successfully, terrorist organizations need both individuals willing to plan and carry out attacks as well as communities to harbor them. Though many of the most notorious terrorists are highly educated (al-Shabaab’s Abu Mansoor al-Amriki, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’s Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, and al-Qaeda’s Ayman al-Zawahiri, for example), the vast majority of the Taliban’s, AQAP’s, and al-Shabaab’s foot soldiers are not. Indeed, by providing access to a well-rounded education to those communities that are most at-risk of radicalizing, the U.S. can make it significantly less likely that these communities will accept extremist ideas and those organizations that espouse them. This is especially true when, as they did in Akora, they see the tangible benefits of education for women (an idea that is rejected by virtually all extremist organizations). It is rare to find an occurrence where American values and interests dovetail as clearly as they do in this case. By supporting organizations that provide access to a well-rounded education, the U.S. can address both humanitarian concerns and reduce the space in which terrorist organizations can operate, as more and more communities reject their presence and their rhetoric.

Though this is only one of many stories, the larger point it makes is key to the ongoing struggle for the minds of the people at risk of radicalization, both in Pakistan and well beyond its borders. The Arab Spring has brought this struggle to the forefront, and accelerated the funding by Wahhabist and extremist groups in the region of schools, mosques, and lectures. These educational programs, filled with vitriol and misogyny, not only threaten longer term U.S. interests in the region, but also hope to stifle the dreams of millions of women who deserve the opportunity to be educated and break free from the suffocating grasp of extremism.

Francisco Martin-Rayo is the author of “Winning the Minds: Travels through the terrorist recruiting grounds of Yemen, Pakistan, and the Somali border,” and the founder of the Winning the Minds Foundation. He is a counter-radicalization and public diplomacy expert whose work has been published by Foreign Policy and Harvard University. Follow him @fmrsolis or email him at Francisco@winningtheminds.org.

DoD photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Chad J. McNeeley/Released.

The views presented in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent the views of any other organization.