President Musharraf’s plans to crack down on Karachi’s religious schools and the violent sectarian and jihadi groups many of them support has been an outright failure, says a report released Wednesday by the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG).

Banned jihadi and sectarian groups, along with the madrasas — Islamic religious schools — and mosques which support them, continue to operate freely in Islamabad and to train and dispatch jihadi fighters to Afghanistan and Indian-administered Kashmir.

The ICG report calls upon the international community to apply pressure on Musharraf to follow through on his commitments to enforce government controls over the madrasas, and to allow open elections in 2007.

Although concerns about mad-rasa-trained jihadists largely focus on Pakistan’s border regions and Afghanistan, violence has threatened the internal stability of Pakistan. In 2006, Karachi was rocked by three separate suicide bombings, which killed a US diplomat and the leader of a Shia political group, and wiped out the entire leadership of a Sunni militant group that was locked in a struggle for control over mosques with Sunni rival.

The madrasas are accused of capitalising on the climate of lawlessness in Karachi to encourage illegal activities ranging from land encroachment to violent attacks on rival militant groups. However, some experts say their role in the violence is exaggerated. “They are not capable of teaching utilitarian subjects, because the teachers are simply not trained for it,” Anatol Lieven, a senior research fellow at the New America Foundation, told IPS.

The ICG points to the absence

of a single Pakistani agency to regulate the madrasa sector, specifically its money flows, as a crucial failure in every one of Musharraf’s attempts to curb radical Islam. To date, most plans to counter radical Islam in madrasas have focused on reforming the madrasa system through the curricula. Instead, the ICG suggests government and donor funding should be shifted towards increased support and reform of the public school system and away from reforming a madrasa system that has consistently refused to cooperate with government policies. Focusing on removing sectarian, pro-jihad and anti-minority curricula may find a more responsive audience in the public school system, which depends largely on public funds for survival.

However, such a policy would require large sums of time and money to implement. Although the ICG recommendations focus on the necessity of democratic transparency and open elections, Lieven points to the dire economy in Pakistan as one of the sources of Islamic extremism. “It is important that anyone who emerges from the Pakistani education system, madras or public school, have jobs to go to,” he said. “Unless you can find jobs for people who come out of the system, including the madrasa system, you won’t greatly reduce the threat (of extremism).” — IPS