Actually, they knew it would be about waging war, but they found out no war needed to be waged: “They’d followed the call from a religious leader in Pakistan to come in and wage jihad. They were told believed that the ‘infidels’ — the NATO forces — were running this country now, and they came in to help drive them out…they suddenly realize that Afghanistan is not ruled by infidels, that this very much still a Muslim country, and they were proclaiming their naivete.”
Or that’s what they say, anyway.
All week during my Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week talks at DePaul, the University of Rhode Island, and Brown (I also spoke at Dartmouth, but this didn’t happen there), I was confronted by people who had been lied to and who fervently believed the lies and were acting upon them. This is apparently — if the claims of these men are to be believed — happening in jihad recruitment in Pakistan also.
These men may well be lying, but in theory it is completely believable that these men would have been told that Afghanistan was being trodden under by infidels, with no mention made of how anxious those infidels are not to do anything to give offense to Islam or Muslims. But when the propagandized saw that their propaganda didn’t match reality, their eyes began to be opened. Perhaps that will begin to happen on college campuses also.
“Arrested Taliban bombing jihadists claim naivety,” from CTV.ca (thanks to DSH):
Three self-confessed, 20-something Pakistani jihadists arrested in Afghanistan have an odd story to tell — assuming it’s true.
“They’d followed the call from a religious leader in Pakistan to come in and wage jihad,” CTV’s Paul Workman told Newsnet on Saturday from Kandahar.
“They were told believed that the ‘infidels’ — the NATO forces — were running this country now, and they came in to help drive them out.
After their arrest, “they suddenly realize that Afghanistan is not ruled by infidels, that this very much still a Muslim country, and they were proclaiming their naivete,” he said.
An Afghan security official told a news conference that three suspected Taliban ‘trainers’ from Pakistan had been arrested as they travelled to Kandahar province.
Security agents picked up the three men on the highway between Uruzgan province and Kandahar to the south, Abdul Qayoom, of the National Directorate for Security, said Saturday in Kandahar City.
Authorities said they believe the men are trainers for the Taliban, who have been trying to recruit more members to become suicide bombers.
“The intelligence services say they knew they were coming and that they are not just naive foot soldiers, that they very much are involving in training people to make and set roadside bombs,” Workman said.
The arrests actually happened a week ago but only made public now. However, the Afghan security forces want to show that they are doing their jobs, he said.