Madrassa

A madrassa, in its most basic form, is a religious school that teaches Islam. While the term has become associated with schools indoctrinating in extreme Jihadist theologies, theology and curriculum vary from region to region and from school to school. Not all such schools are not categorically tied to militancy, and their students are not necessarily poor. They are, as are mosques and public proselytizing events (tabligh) "“gathering” places where militant groups, religious ideologues, and potential recruits can interact."

A "supply side" analysis, however, challenges the assumption a critical source of terrorists. The individuals involved in sophisticated attacks, which required language skill to penetrate areas outside Pakistan, or mathematical skills to work with explosives such as the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the 1998 bombings of U.S. Embassies in Africa, the 9-11 Attack, the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings, and the July 2005 London bombings, were university-educated.

Taliban

A significant number of madrassas, which do teach extreme doctrines, have direct or indirect funding from Wahabbist sponsors in Saudi Arabia. Many Taliban were schooled in Pakistani madrassas, of the Deoband school of Wahhabism.

During the Afghanistan War (1978-92), "a new kind of madrassa emerged in the Pakistan-Afghanistan region -- not so much concerned about scholarship as making war on infidels." Unquestionably, the Taliban in Afghanistan came significantly from a madrassa background, but they were initially a rising against lawlessness in their country, then a Salafist movement once in power, and a supporter of external terrorism rather than themselves a terrorist movement like their guest, al-Qaeda. The Taliban also changed from their origins as Inter-Services Intelligence began to influence them for reasons of Pakistani government interest. The leadership was made up principally of graduates of the Haqqania madrassa near Peshawar. The students making up the core of the Taliban, however, had grown up in a radical Deoband Islamic environment outside Afghanistan; their religion was more central than their tribal identity

Pakistan

A major source of young insurgents, however, are radical Islamic schools,madaris in Pakistan. Some madari leaders issue fatwas authorizing violence and a snall number of madaris actually conduct militant training. While it is more likely that a madari student will support violence, the 70% of Pakistani students in public schools also have a high approval for violence. Long-term solutions to reducing violence requires, therefore, educational reform. A problem of the study that produced the statistics covering militancy, however, is biased because it did not include the potentially more radicalized schools in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and Northwest Frontier Province.

"Supply side analysis", applied to Pakistan, suggests that Lashkar e-Tayyiba (LeT), which operates outside Pakistan (e.g., it is suspected in the 2008 Madras attacks) is less likely to use madari students than Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) and Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP). The latter two groups use less sophisticated methods, such as grenade throwing, initially against Shi'a mosques and similar "soft" targets. LeJ, however, may be retargeting Pakistani Security Forces in the FATA.

Anecdotal evidence may indicate that madaris are more involved in sectarian Sunni-vs.-Shia violence than in attacks on security forces.

Sh'ia

Iraqi Shi'ites, have long had madrassas, but obviously based in Sunni Wahhabism. They first appeared in the Shi'ite holy cities of Karbala, Kadhimaym, Najaf and Samarra, in the eighteenth century. Najaf, in particular, also gained the reputation of being Arab rather than Persian Shi'ite. In the Ottoman provinces that made up modern Iraq, they also served as an alternative to Sunni madrassas.