The making of a Mumbai Terrorist

TIME has obtained the story of the surviving "Mumbai terrorist", Mohammad Amir Ajmal Qasab. The story of what makes an ordinary person to commit acts of terror is one we need to understand in order to do all we can to cut of the supply of fighters who become "terrorists" to Jihadist islamic groups, and indeed groups associated to other faiths.  

The Making of a Mumbai Terrorist - TIME.

Talking of his "confession" to police which they somehow obtained, TIME says:

As a legal document, it is of questionable value; it was almost certainly obtained under duress and has been widely circulated. But as a narrative of the transformation of a country boy into a jihadist, it is believable and — more than that — important. Understand Qasab's story and you begin to understand why young men throw in their lot with Islamic extremists, why Pakistan may be the most dangerous country in the world, why the half-century-long dispute between India and Pakistan over Kashmir is not just a local problem, why education reform in the poor world is an issue of national security in the rich one — and why draining the swamps in which terrorism is spawned has been so difficult.

The story follows Qasab from very ordinary beginnings in his home village:

It would be convenient to think of Qasab as a psychopath, exploited by cynical handlers who corrupt young men in the name of religion. In fact, his origins are ordinary. In his confession, Qasab, now 21, says he was born in the village of Faridkot, in Pakistan's Punjab province. He is said to have been a typical teenager, not especially religious, albeit with a reputation as a troublemaker. His family is poor — his father sells fried snacks at a bus station — but owns its own house. Qasab attended the local primary school; at 13, he left the village to live and work with his elder brother in Lahore.

Qasab's is the classic profile of a jihadi, according to Pakistani psychologist Sohail Abbas. In 2002, Abbas interviewed 517 men who had been jailed for going to fight U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Unlike the stereotypical image of a terrorist — illiterate, fanatic and trained in madrasahs, or religious seminaries — the men had relatively high levels of literacy and were more likely to have been educated in government schools than in madrasahs. Religion wasn't necessarily the only reason they turned to jihad. A Pakistani who enrolled in a training camp in Kunar province, Afghanistan, told TIME that he went for "tourism and adventure."

From Faridkot he made his way to Lahore, seeking communion with God and hope at the shrine Sufi Muslim saint who had brought Islam ot the area "through his example of love, charity and direct communication with God."  After two years he headed to Rawalpindi in hope of gaining some financial stability. Finding no job he was drawn to crime, and hoping to get a gun, he signed up at a market stall for weapon training with Lashkar-e-Taiba, LeT,  a banned jihadist group. It is ironic that like so many today having started seeking spiritual solace through Sufi Islam he ended up with the Wahhabi / Deobandi (South Asian equivalent of the Wahhabi school of Islam). He was led along the route of commitment to Jihad,  involvement in fighting in Kashmir, selected for special operations, and hence to Mumbai in November 2008.

Doubtless there were moments of choice along the way, but there didn't seem any major moments of revelation. Very simply poverty drove him down a particular direction towards a hope of social mobility, and from there the making of a jihadist seems almost seamless. 

... Despite the risks, joining a militant network provides social mobility that is virtually unattainable in Pakistani society, giving the groups' members a sense of purpose and pride and elevating their status .....  when Qasab went home to see his family just before the Mumbai attacks, he was a changed man — calm, with a sense of purpose and able to demonstrate his new fighting skills. ...

The article concludes:

.... He may have been no more than a small player. But in the places he came from and passed through and the sights, sounds and messages that he experienced, he is part of a much bigger tale, a violent drama that has rumbled over much of the subcontinent. The role has done him no good. Qasab may have escaped Faridkot and Rawalpindi. But he's no closer to the other side of the fence than when he started.

It all seems so avoidable - but at the cost of a real commitment from Pakistan AND the west.